Since first watching it at the beginning of 2024, Gone Girl directed by David Fincher quickly became one of my favourite films. However, this month I read the original book written by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. For people that are fans of the movie, I would highly recommend also reading the book for a deeper insight into the characters, their relationship, and the theme of marriage which is woven throughout the entire backbone of the story.
The salient feature of the film is the character Amy. She is a cunning, ingenious villain who managed to manipulate, control and lie to her husband, the police, the media, the town she lives in, and even the audience. Due to the concise nature of film adaptations, many details about Amy’s character found in the book are left unexplored. From reading the novel, it is clear that Amy is only a shell of a person. Both the book and film emphasise her switching and gliding between personalities. On the other hand, the novel offers an additional layer of depth to Amy’s traits which assists the reader in understanding her better. In the book’s ‘Cool Girl Monologue’, which is different to the film’s, there is a clearer distinguishment made between “Cool Amy” and “Real Amy”, whereas these personalities she makes for herself are not actually her, as she is able to wear and change these facades whenever the attention she receives from her partner fluctuates. The book details her turning into Cool Amy once she started dating Nick, before she stepped into the role of a traditional wife once they had married. Once Nick was laid off from his job and he began to become lazier in their relationship, he stopped giving her the validation she craved, which was the catalyst for her turning cold and bitter towards him in return. When she witnessed Nick ‘professing his love’ to her on national television, she was finally once again told what she wanted to hear and she couldn't fathom why she ever thought of leaving. Her ability to switch between these dispositions and attitudes towards her husband on the basis of his treatment of her is evidence of her lack of personal identity and demonstrates her personalistic codependece, as she shapes herself based on those around her.
I believe the book further explores Amy's narcissistic qualities, particularly her need for male validation. In the novel, she is displayed as resentful towards other women, seemingly as though she were competing with them, as she makes several negative remarks about women she deems ugly- Detective Rhonda Boney as an example. Some cases of her manipulation of men she had been in relationships with in the past, which I believe facilitate portraying the extent of her narcissism, were omitted from the film. For example, Tommy O’Hara was accused (falsely accused, seemingly) of sexual assault by Amy, as he claims she was upset that they were growing distant because Amy was attempting to control and change him, however a detail in the book that he had been seeing another woman was left out. In a similar way that Nick was having an affair with Andie, Amy would go to extreme measures to gain back the control she was so used to having over the men in her life. This need for attention and control stems from the Amazing Amy book series her parents had based off of her life, where the main character is essentially a flawless and more talented version of the real Amy. As a result, Amy always strived for perfection and affirmation that she met the high standards illustrated in the book series. The novel provides more backstory on her childhood and how her mother had suffered multiple problems in pregnancy before having her miracle child, Amy. Developing an extreme case of only child syndrome, her parents constantly doted on her, she was treated as a high-achieving gifted child throughout her schooling, and her attractiveness made her the target of frequent male attention. All of these factors consequently constructed the narcissistic nature of Amy and left her sense of self undetermined in all directions, as she constantly changed for external approval. Throughout the novel, Amy usually asked herself multiple-choice quiz questions when choosing how to navigate certain social situations (an homage to her job as a quiz-writer), which further exhibited how she constantly checked herself and revised her actions to evoke positive responses from others. The copy of the book I received included some unpublished scenes. In one, Amy described her childhood, where her two psychologist parents would ask her questions to test her morals and help shape her a into good-natured child, however she states that this only hindered her ability to develop a personality of her own and instead taught her to act out a persona based on what she believed those around her wanted. In her very own words- “They had created a perfectly Whole Human, as long as you were looking at me from the outside. The inside? It was quite wonderfully empty.”
The film concludes with Nick choosing to stay with Amy because she is pregnant with his child, whereas after my first watch I wasn’t really sure as to why he couldn’t have found a way around this and leave her. In the book, Nick attempts to choke Amy once she comes back home, but he chooses not to. This is not because of the consequences of the murder itself, but because her disappearance caused him to recognise his inability to picture his life without her. They both knew each other in their marrow. Nick knew exactly what to say in his televised interview to bring Amy back, and Amy knew the exact steps Nick would take in order to frame him for murder. They are addicted to each other and there is no other person alive that they would be content settling down with except for each other. In the book Nick says, “I can’t imagine my story without Amy. She is my forever antagonist.” It is clear that the only time he felt good about himself was when he was with Amy, as she encouraged him to constantly improve himself to stay on her level, in a similar way that she was constantly acting to please him. The book is almost like a very twisted love story. I feel as though the film does not explore this depth of their relationship as much as the book, which may cause viewers to leave with questions about why Nick stayed. The novel also gives background on Nick’s issues with his father, who was a misogynist that was emotionally unavailable and hostile towards his wife and children. This provides additional motivation for him to stay, as he aims to be present in his child’s life, unlike his own father. A quote from Book Amy that I believe perfectly sums up their entire relationship is this: “Nick and I fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them.”