10 Hidden Details In Opening And Closing Movie Scenes You Completely Missed

Despite the many masterpieces that David Fincher has directed (including The Social Network, Fight Club, Se7en and Zodiac), it seems like Gone Girl may in fact be his most universally well-loved movie.

The film, which takes us through many different genres and tones (including missing person thriller and exploitation black comedy), centres on the trials and tribulations of a complicated marriage between Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), as Amy attempts to frame Nick for her own disappearance.

It opens with the picturesque image of the married couple lying in bed together, which all of a sudden, takes a dark turn when Amy sinisterly looks into the camera. The ending shot replicates this scene exactly, but this time, our perception of the central woman has now completely changed.

Although the film may be an incredibly entertaining and thrilling popcorn movie, Gone Girl is also a really scathing and startling commentary on marriage. The end - in which the couple end up back together, after trying to escape each other for the whole movie - tells us everything we need to know about marriage. Despite how much the characters desperately want to escape their situation, they are ultimately trapped, and now, must spend the rest of their lives in a loveless and passionless relationship. As Amy wonderfully puts it, “that’s marriage”.

And the opening and closing shot really reinforces this - despite how much they wanted things to change, ultimately everything has stayed exactly the same.