‘Gone Girl’, Who’s to Blame… Nick or Amy?

One aspect of Gone Girl I find endlessly fascinating to discuss, largely due to how maddening it can be since I don’t believe there is any “right” answer, is to explore the idea of fault resulting from the film’s main narrative.

Here we have a situation where a cheating husband, Nick (Ben Affleck), is framed by his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), for her murder. The story is told through the eyes of both Nick and Amy, neither of which could we say are telling the whole truth with any measure of certainty, which gets to the heart of the film’s theme, and the manipulation going on, not only within their marriage, but with the audience as well. And through all this I can’t help but wonder, just which one of them do you believe is actually at fault for what takes place within the film, or is it even possible to place blame on either of their shoulders exclusively?

A first step may be to consider the facts as we seem to know them. We know for a fact Nick cheated on Amy and when questioned by the police, Nick doesn’t seem to have any idea what Amy does all day, a sign he’s neglected her at home and doesn’t much care for her at all. Hell, he even reveals to his sister (Carrie Coon) he was intending to ask for a divorce the morning Amy went missing. Of course, this is what he says, whether it’s true or not we will never actually know.

Then there’s Amy, not only has she gone to pain-staking lengths to frame her husband for murder — a fake diary, crime scene, credit card purchases and friendships — she’s done something similar before. Then again, that’s what we’re told and it’s up to us to decide just how much we’re willing to believe.

Amy’s narcissism then begins to show, she considers herself one of the “cool girls” and can’t bring herself to go through with her entire plan, which was to end in her suicide. Then again, is it really narcissistic to not want to kill oneself?

The main reason I find the question of “Who’s to blame?” so fascinating with this movie is because I feel it’s very easy to walk out of the movie and consider Amy a psychopath and say it’s all her fault. However, I don’t think considering Amy psychotic necessarily means she’s to blame for everything that takes place. Certainly, at the end of the film, when she runs Nick through the ringer, doing all she can to ensure he won’t leave her, it suggests she really is crazy. Then there’s that line, “That’s marriage,” she tells Nick and it cuts to the heart of the film. She sees this as all part of what it means to be married, an equivalent retaliation for what he’s put her through and now they can go on…

Nick has cheated on Amy. He’s used her, gained status in New York before they left because of her and has now returned home, only to shun her. He doesn’t need her anymore. As it’s said in the film, he’s like the homecoming king in this small Missouri town. Amy is left to believe she’s nothing. The recession has left her damn near penniless, in a world she can’t call her own and now the man she loved is ready to kick her to the curb. She reacts and it’s definitely a harsh reaction, but is the end result of her reaction any more-or-less psychologically or emotionally damaging than what Nick has put her through? Remember, she was going to kill herself.

The easy response is to say Amy wouldn’t have done what she did had Nick not done what he did. Then you’re left to ask yourself if Amy went too far in her revenge. Perhaps the bigger question is to ask would she still have gone too far if she had killed herself? If Nick’s treatment of her had been so bad that it drove her to take her own life, thus ending with Nick likely facing a death sentence of his own, would there have been any measure of fairness in the end result?

It’s morbid to consider, but I largely think it’s interesting since I don’t think this is a film wherein it’s as simple as saying, “Amy was psycho!” and leaving it at that. How about you?