The first half of Gone Girl is essentially a masterclass in misdirection and after the reveal that (last warning) Amy is still alive things move so quickly there's hardly time to even put everything in place, so before we dive into some of the questions and themes of the ending let's get the overview of the plot straight. Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) meet at some point in 2005, fall in love and get married a couple of years later. With the pair losing their jobs in the recession and forced to move back to Missouri when Nick's mother falls ill, their marriage begins to suffer. Nick starts an affair with one of his students and upon discovering this Amy plots a complicated revenge scheme. She has a history of manipulating and abusing former partners - she's even framed one of sexual assault - and this one takes her to new extremes. Planting clues (primarily through a forged diary) and presenting herself as a lovely-but-abused wife, she fakes her disappearance, leaving just enough evidence behind to implicate Nick. Everything goes to plan until, while in hiding, Amy gets robbed and finds herself penniless and must call on former flame Desi for help. Realising Nick has figured out what she's done, she changes the plan. Killing Desi and framing him for her abduction, she returns home and attempts to rebuild her life with Nick. The film ends with Amy stalemating a Nick eager to reveal the truth by getting herself pregnant. Realising he can't desert his child, he ends up going along with it, stuck in his marriage once again.
