Gone Girl kicks off with a dreamy soliloquy from Nick where he talks about scooping Amy's brains out. Playing into our expectations of a mystery thriller, it's quickly twisted to be a metaphor for the usual relationship ponderings of what the other person is really thinking. In the final shot this moment is returned to, with the same questions presented with a much more malicious meaning; "What are you thinking? What are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do?" are a lot more probing than just whether someone's a little stuck in a rut. This is the film's real ace and where Fincher's aims really lie. Although the movie is an incredibly extreme case, the sort of compromise and façades Nick and Amy are engaging in are, to an extent, universal. The questions Nick asks about his murderous wife are the same a regular husband asks about his loving partner and the desire to be the happiest couple out there is common motivation to overlook various ingrained issues. It's not a condemnation of marriage or even love, but a show of how in the fog of a relationship glaring issues can be ignored in a bid to maintain the status quo. Amy's concentration of modern romance into an act of attaining the "Cool Girl" is an incredibly cynical outlook that serves as an embodiment of that many people fall in love with the idea of a person, rather than the person themselves. And while in Nick's case he fell for a psychopath who is seemingly only capable of this sort of manipulation, it's easy for two utterly unsuitable people to end up forging a life together (and, as Amy does at the end, believing it works). What did you think of Gone Girl? And what was you're lasting impression of the film's message? Let us know in the comments below.
