Nick and Amy Dunne have been married for five years. On the
day of their anniversary, Amy suddenly goes missing. Nick returns home to find
evidence of a struggle, and immediately calls the police. Foul play is suspected,
and before long, the media decides to publicly crucify Nick on the charge of
murder, lack of a corpse notwithstanding. Is Nick truly a sociopath as the
media declares, or is he simply handling the situation awkwardly, as best as he
can?
This is the plot of the movie Gone Girl, based on the smash-hit novel by Gillian Flynn. Though
the plot may seem rather conventional, the story is very cleverly structured, combining
the main plot with excerpts from Amy’s diary. The picture the diary paints is
one of a marriage which starts as a fairy-tale romance, but with financial
troubles come hard times, and before long the relationship is strained almost
to a breaking-point. Yet the story that Nick tells is a very different one. This forms something of a he-said-she-said plot which is easily one
of the most interesting things about Gone
Girl.
