Comments (4)

• Kagan's review leaves too many of the deeply troubling aspects of the film untouched, and makes light of its narrative unevenenss. Particularly distressing is the insistent misogyny that frames every element of the film, not the least the depiction of mothers. Mothers in Gone Girl are either vicious and conniving (mother-to-be, Amy, and her own high-achieving mother) or dumb and uncritical (the suburban mothers). The film trades on American popular culture's tolerance for violence towards women, in this case inverting the real homicides - violence committed by men on women - to the unreal (if 'entertaining') spectacle of Amy's vendetta. The homicidal blond was portrayed far more incisively by Sharon Stone all those years ago in Fatal Attraction - and as Kagain points to, the male anger more passionately by Michael Douglas in that same film. Gone Girl's use of the c-word is soon adolescent: said half a dozen times it shouts out to us, this film isn't afraid to transgress with language. Ho hum. Yes, the final act is 'preposterous' as is much of the film: as a psychology driven plot it just doesn't make sense unless you think 'okay Amy is a psychopath created by bad, selfish mothering'. If she is not a psychopath, then the violence arising from the fact her husband had an affair and their marriage has taken a dull turn, defies suspension of disbelief. The twists and turns to viewer sympathy with the protagonists are fun to engage with, but obvious. I was steadily aware that now I was being asked to believe this, or to dislike that. Does the film say anything about hetrosexual relations between men and women, as Kagan believes it does? As an uncritical representation of misogyny, no.
  Posted by Jane Messer

  15 October 2014
• I found the film's finale so ridden with ridiculous plot holes it ruined my appetite for the book, which I haven't read and won't now. Regardless of the super sophisticated interpretations some reviewers will make of this work, the inconsistencies of character and illogical latitude taken in the film's climax leaves the entire story sadly wanting of any real meaning or purpose.
  Amy gets away with murdering a man on 'framed' evidence provided by cameras that would also have recorded her arriving with him unbound and wandering freely on her own over a day or two? And, as is pointed out but never addressed, how does a woman bound for days get a hold of a box cutter? Sorry, I don't buy it as clever. I buy it as not being clear on how to end what should have been a terrific story of pretence and manipulation behind a seemingly perfect marriage.
  But then, I'm not an expert film critic, so what would I know?
  Posted by Kate Belle

  15 October 2014
• I loved the writing of gone girl, the way we got to know the characters. They were both good and bad it was very dark and edgy. How, at one point you woul be on Amy and you wanted her found, so you could point a finger at Nick. Then all of a sudden Nick was the good guy. Amy was evil or was she? The film was true to the book.
  Posted by Kristine Rothbury

  15 October 2014
• For me, as a crime writer, Gone Girl had errors that one could have driven a Mack truck through - mistakes that should have never been allowed to happen. I won't give spoilers, because that could ruin the movie for people who are looking forward to it. There were aspect of the movie which were great and scary, and then several errors that should have - if the policing was "spot on" never be over-looked. If you see the film, watch the diary instances, the murder scene and its lead-up, the press conference and the conversation with the leading detective at the end. Jane Campion may well have done better job with the devil in the details!
  Posted by Diana Hockley

  15 October 2014