After being on the best seller list for months, “Gone Girl” it appears has become a very successful yet controversial movie. As a reader,I felt it was definitely a page turner because I had no idea how it was going to end.
Gillian Flynn, the author, wrote the screenplay and from what I have read the movie plot does not vary from the book. Without giving away the twisted plot, I will say that I felt that Flynn’s characters were selfish, self-absorbed even evil people. I remember thinking I really strongly disliked both the husband and wife characters.
However, the controversy surrounding the movie now seems to center on the character of the wife, Amy Dunne. Recently, on a morning talk show the male host was asked whether “Gone Girl” was a good date movie. He emphatically stated that is was not.
In her Sunday NYT column the always entertaining Maureen Dowd weighs in on the latest “film noir vixen Amy Dunne.” In “Lady Psychopaths Welcome,” Dowd agrees with author Flynn whose philosophy is “Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.” Men do bad things in movies and books all the time and they’re called anti-heroes. “The idea that every portrait of a woman should be an ideal woman, meant to stand for all of womanhood, is an enemy of art.” The movie is more about the “me-monster than the she-monster.” So guys, it is all right to bring a female date to the movie. David Fincher, the director has said, “It’s a mystery that becomes an absurdist thriller that ultimately becomes a satire.” Therefore,the audience, both men and women, should relax and go along for the ride.