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YMMV / Gone Girl

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YMMV tropes found in the book and the film adaptation:

  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • This one is more prevalent in the film rather than the book. Is Amy just pure evil or a Jerkass Woobie? Given she was willing to kill herself as the major part of her plan and wants to come home after Nick shows he's capable of being the husband she remembers, it seems possible to view her actions as not simple psychosis but being desperately unhappy. Rosamund Pike's performance also seems to indicate that Amy genuinely loved Nick in her own way but felt betrayed by his attempt to box her in as his unwanted nagging wife from New York. This is despite the fact she moved across the country to a small town in order to be with him, and he barely made an effort to repair their marriage when it started to strain.
    • Oddly, averted with Nick. Is Nick the grieving husband, a Nice Guy, and cool sophisticate who is the first person to ever treat Amy as a person? Or is Nick a borderline misogynist, a controlling asshole, and unambitious loser who gave up on a prestigious life in New York to become a community college professor who sleeps with much-younger students? The answer is, he's all of these things. Nick is a multifaceted guy with both dark and light qualities; qualities which come to the fore depending on his circumstances or desire to show them.
    • In spite of everything, does part of Nick still love Amy in spite of being terrified of her? After all, she did literally kill for him. Go accuses him of wanting to still be with her and might have a point.
      • His last line to Amy, that he feels sorry for her, has two possible meanings. Does he genuinely pity her out of the goodness of his heart? Or is Flynn showing us that Nick is playing the game on Amy's level, and knew that saying that was the best way to get under her skin?
    • Did Greta ever figure out who Amy really was, or was Amy just paranoid? This one's even debated by Amy In-Universe.
      • For that matter, did Greta rob Amy out of pure greed, or was she angry and spiteful over Amy, who has never been abused the same way Greta was, exploiting the sympathy people have for women who were actually abused? Her line in the movie, "I can tell you've never been hit in your life!" followed by her punching Amy adds credence to this idea.
    • Did Andie reveal her affair with Nick to the public solely to get back at him for dumping her? Or did she truly believe he might be guilty? Or did she figure that the affair would get out anyway, and decided to beat Nick to the punch so she could be in control of the narrative, thus being more able to cover her ass? How much of her nerves and shame at her press conference was real? While she shows a jealous and vindictive side, she is very young, and seems to have really loved Nick, so it's plausible she was genuinely scared.
    • And, was Andie annoyingly clingy toward Nick in the early days of the disappearance because she's The Ditz who was taking their relationship too seriously? Or, was it because she was genuinely terrified that the man she's seeing might have killed his wife, and is looking for reassurance and wants to be able to figure out where she stands? The way she seemingly does a Face–Heel Turn when he tries to break it off seems to indicate that there was some terror brewing underneath her clingy exterior, as even she points out how absurd it was that she stood by his side when she had no reason to believe he didn't kill his wife.
    • Ellen Abbott's accusing Nick and Go of Twincest. While she's undeniably a Smarmy Host who likes to make her stories as lurid as possible, could she have been onto something? There's definitely something weird about Nick and Margo's relationship.
    • Did Amy plant the items from the credit cards in Go's shed solely because incriminating her would really hurt Nick? Because Amy just plain didn't like her? Because she knew Go didn't like her and couldn't stand that one person found her off-putting? Or did she (incorrectly) assume that Go knew Nick was cheating and was thus complicit?
  • Broken Base:
    • The "Cool Girl" speech has divided feminists over whether Amy is making a good point about women changing themselves into The Lad-ette to attract men or whether she's just condemning women who don't fit her ideal of what is proper behavior. The movie subtly argues that Amy is wrong by singling out women, failing to see that humans in general behave this way. This is highlighted by her wrongly identifying a women in a car she passes as a "Cool Girl," someone who plays up to men's fantasies, only for the camera to reveal her passenger is actually another woman. And that's not even getting into Amy's evil, violent actions. And then there is a third camp that thinks that Amy brings up some good points and isn't entirely wrong, but you also probably shouldn't take everything she says at face value.
    • The work as a whole tends to inspire passionate feelings for or against, with fans seeing it as a twisted, jewel-like labyrinth of a psychological thriller, with a fascinating antagonist and keen criticism of modern day gender roles. Detractors tend to think that Flynn plays into the very same reductive, sophomoric gender roles she pretends to tear down, and claim that the narrative is riddled with plot holes and nonsensical character decisions, even after The Reveal.
    • The frame-up plot in general has those who see it as a meticulously well-constructed trap and those who see it as a Gambit Roulette that worked out thorough sheer luck as much as anything else. The latter category is further divided between those who see its fundamental shoddiness as intentional, the logical byproduct of being put together by a sociopath who struggles to understand human beings and isn't as smart as she thinks she is and those who see it as unintentional, succeeding through authorial fiat.
  • Catharsis Factor: Given her horrible actions and condescending attitude to everyone in Missouri, Amy getting robbed and punched out by Greta, fully realizing she just got bested by uneducated trailer trash and can’t do a damn thing about it, is very satisfying.
  • Diagnosed by the Audience: Amy fits the criteria for being a sociopath extremely well but generally shows indications of other issues. She is an absolute perfectionist and insists on being seen as flawless at all times, freaking out if anyone sees her as any less, she plans things far in advance, she is obsessed with proving how smart she is at every opportunity, reacts to minor slights and inconveniences with extreme anger and wrath, she has no empathy whatsoever, she is completely incapable of admitting to being wrong about anything, she is obsessed with trying to change the men in her life and freaks out if they rebuff her, she tends to see people in black and white terms and she lies, cheats and even commits murder with no remorse at all. Add in her childhood and it's clear something is seriously wrong with her.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Many fans like to paint Amy as a completely innocent victim and a feminist role model for men's abuse, despite being a violent, delusional sociopath who murders people, frames others for her crimes, and goes far beyond justified revenge against people who have hardly even done anything to her, and not caring about anyone else's lives besides how it interferes with her wishes. Conversely, many of those same people argue that Nick is pure evil and deserved everything he got, but worse. The fact that she's played by the gorgeous Rosamund Pike may have something to do with it.
    • Nick gets this as well, though far, far less often than Amy does. While he was by no means an innocent man, he’s still not entirely the victim he ended up being viewed as by those who treat him as such, representing his own crappy end of what both characters separately represent, with both being horribly suited for one another.
  • Ending Fatigue: The movie goes on quite a while after Amy returns home. But after her meeting with police at the hospital and conversation with Nick in the shower it’s obvious she’s going to get away with everything and have Nick under her control from then on so wrapping up everything else seems redundant.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: The book's ending is deliberately written to be this. Amy finally has someone she can be herself with and Nick has the child he always wanted. They may eventually kill each other but, at heart, they're both sociopaths. This is averted in the film version, where Nick comes across more sympathetically.
  • It Was His Sled: It's hard to talk about this book and/or movie without mentioning that Amy is a sociopath, framing Nick for her own murder.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Amy. She does some truly horrible things to people over even perceived slights, but it's also made clear that she's a deeply damaged individual. It's clear her parents did not set a good start for her by using her as the basis of a children's book series where the protagonist was designed as being naturally talented and excelling at everything she did, which left Amy feeling like her parents preferred "Amazing Amy" over her. Not only that, but then they take away most of her trust fund as soon as they “need” the money (and it’s implied they weren’t as bad off as they claim). Then Nick expects her to leave her life in New York to move to a place where she’s a fish out of water and doesn’t know anyone. After selling her beloved home in New York for less than market value, Nick uses what’s left of her money to buy a bar, which loses more money. Then he gets bored with her and has an affair with a younger woman.
    • Nick himself is a deeply flawed man, but he so did not deserve the shitstorm he went through at Amy's hands. And, as of the ending, he's stuck in his awful situation until either he or Amy drops dead. His childhood at the hands of his abusive alcoholic father definitely adds to this.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • The "Cool Girl" speech, of course.
    • "I'm the cunt you married. The only time you liked yourself was when you were trying to be someone this cunt might like. I'm not a quitter, I'm that cunt. I killed for you; who else can say that? You think you'd be happy with a nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby! I'm it." Variations of this speech started popping up on Tumblr and other sites.
    • "What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?" was once commonplace on Tumblr.
    • "We're so cute I want to punch us in the face."
  • Misaimed Fandom:
    • Some fans legitimately believe that Amy is a feminist role model despite (or because of?) her being a complete and utter manipulative sociopath, up to applauding her murder of Desi and her framing of Nick. She's also been held up by some men (and women) as their dream girl.
    • Likewise, some fans of the book (movie Nick is far more sympathetic) believe Nick is a flawed but ultimately sympathetic everyman utterly wronged by his wife, when the two of them are a pair of sociopathic individuals trapped in a mutually abusive relationship.
  • Paranoia Fuel: For some people, reading a book and/or watching a movie about a woman who not only hides her true personality but is secretly pulling strings to make her husband's life hell will not make them want to get married anytime soon.
  • Ron the Death Eater: There's a common interpretation of the book and movie that Nick and Amy are mutually abusive and just as bad as one another. This is especially common in response to the book where Nick is regarded by many fans as "way worse." But in both cases, despite Nick being a deeply flawed and unlikeable man, it's difficult to take this interpretation seriously. Amy not only sets up an elaborate scenario to have her husband arrested and, presumably killed just because he was cheating on her, but also then murders the very man who was helping her because she wanted a convenient way out of the situation. Whether it's a case of Draco in Leather Pants because people legitimately think Amy is witty, funny and cool as hell, or Rooting for the Empire because people know Amy is a bad person but she's just too fun of a character, it feels as though people ignore that most of Nick's worst moments – which largely include just thinking misogynistic things after he's realized Amy's framing him – are fairly boilerplate trauma responses. He's still not a great guy, and jerks around Andie just as much as he does Amy, but he's unambiguously a victim in the story, and yet people act like he and Amy are evenly matched.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Some viewers found themselves rooting for Amy anyway, due to her charisma, intelligence, scheming and planning to make Nick responsible for her disappearance. Her backstory as noted in Jerkass Woobie and Nick's adultery starting all of the trouble don't help much.
  • Spiritual Successor: Reconstructing Amelia could be seen as the young adult version of Gone Girl.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It is possible to have this kind of reaction to either the book or film. While the characters are capable of Pet the Dog moments or moments of genuine empathy, most of them can be distrustful, shallow, unfaithful, self-centered or at the very worst, sociopathic. Throw in an ending that's pretty bleak, especially in the film version considering the softer version of Nick's character, and you got something of a bitter pill to swallow.
  • The Unreveal: The movie wraps up every storyline, but leaves one thing completely unanswered; what was the deal with Desi? He’s very creepy, but is he also a sociopath or just a control freak? Made even weirder in the book because not only is Desi even stranger and more obsessive with keeping Amy in check, but his mother is also a strange, domineering woman with a borderline-creepy relationship with her son.
  • The Woobie: Go is probably the biggest contender- she has to helplessly watch as her twin brother is accused of murdering his own wife, discovering that he has lied to her and has the press constantly asking if she was involved in Amy's disappearance. By the end of the story she also has to live with the knowledge that her brother intends to stay with a manipulative, murderous psychopath.

YMMV tropes found in the book:

  • Ass Pull: A book-exclusive one: Amy shows up bloodied on Nick's doorstep after murdering Desi. The movie averts this by showing the earlier of the two events in question before showing the one that takes place chronologically later.
  • Esoteric Happy Ending: The ending is deliberately written to be this. Amy finally has someone who she can be herself with and Nick has the child he always wanted. They may eventually kill each other but, at heart, they're both sociopaths.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • When Nick is recounting Amy's obsession with finishing everything, he remembers her reading Haruki Murakami's "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle", which is about an estranged couple, along with the wife suddenly going missing.
    • Amy makes a reference to The Aeneid when she calls their town New Carthage (Its real name is North Carthage; Carthage is the site of Aeneas' romance with Dido, which was, to say the least, destructive). Nick is annoyed that he doesn't get the reference.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character : Nick's dad was set up well to be the killer, then he was unceremoniously dumped in the last act.

YMMV tropes found in the film adaptation:

  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Nick comes across as less of a sociopath in the film; he's prone to emotion, genuinely cares about people, and empathizes. To be sure, he's a schlubby kind of guy and painfully awkward when out of his comfort zone (read: the entire movie), but his faults are presented as more of the garden-variety mid-life crisis type. This more human characterization has the side effect of making the already dark ending bleaker in the film than in the book. Book Nick seems excited by Amy and willing and able to manipulate her in turn; film Nick comes across as disgusted but powerless and any fascination with Amy is more akin to Stockholm Syndrome than anything else.
    • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Nick's throwaway line of them being "partners in crime" seems to imply he's not quite the trapped victim Amy hoped for, especially after their earlier confrontation. Amy looks visibly surprised by the comment.
    • Another minor example is the film not revealing that Nick's father emotionally abused his mother and family. This makes Nick's interactions with him much more open to interpretation and potentially makes him much more unsympathetic.
    • Andie comes off as more shallow and vapid than her book counterpart thanks to a comparative lack of screentime—was she sleeping with Nick because she genuinely loved him, or did she just think that it might give her a leg up in her career?
  • Alternate Aesop Interpretation:
    • You can be much happier in marriage if you both pretend to be better people than you are.
    • Don't cheat on your spouse, ever.
    • If you're unhappy in your marriage, just get a fucking divorce.
  • Award Snub: The film received all but one Academy Award nomination. While many would agree that said nomination (Best Actress for Rosamund Pike) was well-deserved, it also meant that Gillian Flynn was excluded for Best Adapted Screenplay, as was David Fincher for Best Director, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for Best Original Score, and the entire film for Best Picture. The fact that Pike eventually lost her nomination also ruffled feathers.
  • Awesome Music: As always, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score is a highlight. Especially the tracks that plays over Nick discovering the contents of the woodshed, the "Cool Girl" speech, Amy's murder of Desi, and the amazingly eerie opening title track.
  • He Really Can Act:
    • There's been praise for Tyler Perry's performance as a media-savvy attorney even among critics who don't normally enjoy his work.
    • Although he's given a number of great performances in other films before this, there were a few who still expressed surprise and enthusiasm when stating how much they enjoyed Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne.
    • Rosamund Pike surprised a few viewers with how she nailed Amy.
    • Few would question Neil Patrick Harris' skills with comedy, but here he plays a completely dramatic, and rather creepy, character, and pulls it off without a hitch.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Ben Affleck was involved in cheating allegations a few months after the release of the movie, and his wife filed for divorce shortly after. Some paparazzi photos of him with his kids were pointed out to look extremely similar to Nick's expression at the initial press conference.
  • Memetic Mutation: The question of whether you can see Ben Affleck's penis during the shower scene near the end. The debate rages on.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Amy's murder of Desi has a lot of blood and quickly switches from sex to strangulation.
  • Squick: Amy shoves a wine bottle into her lady parts to fake a rape injury.
  • Take That, Scrappy!:
    • Jeff and Greta robbing Amy is a cathartic moment in the film.
    • Amy killing Desi.

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