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Yeah, I think coupes will enjoy it, in that uncomfortable smile kind of way, while on a less than a year together couple might cause some unwanted rift lol
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Oct 3, 2014 01:02
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This really came across to me as an MRA's wet dream. Impeccably-directed, shot, scored, and acted, but Amy definitely comes across as a psycho bitch to me. They could have pulled it off if they delved more into why she was like this, but "my husband was cheating on me so I concocted this elaborate plan to frame him etc" is totally nuts. I can't agree with Flynn that the motive is there. Plus a lot of it was like "the justice system is stacked against men!!!" although that's the lesser issue here.
Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Oct 3, 2014 |
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Oct 3, 2014 01:17
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Yeah, I couldn't figure this out at all. Is the message "man, women are psychos!" or is it actually some kind of elaborate feminist revenge fantasy ala Dirty Weekend? I found it disappointing either way. I thought it was oddly free of tension, the dialogue was cheesy, and I didn't get the character motivations. When the movie descends into farce I started to enjoy it more, but that just made me want to watch the underrated Side Effects again, which pulls the "farce disguised as psychological thriller" switcheroo with more pizazz, and laughs. Popcorn fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Oct 3, 2014 |
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Oct 3, 2014 01:45
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If you watch this with your SO and you both come away saying anything other than "Holy poo poo they're both completely hosed up" I'd say you have problems. Seriously why would this be awkward or weird for a couple?
Venkmanologist fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Oct 3, 2014 |
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Oct 3, 2014 04:46
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Popcorn posted:Yeah, I couldn't figure this out at all. Is the message "man, women are psychos!" or is it actually some kind of elaborate feminist revenge fantasy ala Dirty Weekend? I have to agree. This was a flop for me, and a frustratingly misogynistic one. Amy was absolutely a stereotypical crazy psycho bitch, and she pretty much ticked off all the "things that crazy women do" boxes throughout the movie. But apart from that, the Fincher formula just seemed to misfire here: the odd pacing deflated a lot of the tension (not to mention that painful 10-minute exposition in which Amy tells us exactly what she did in detail), and his normally great directing just didn't have its usual energy. The acting was often cheesy, and at first I thought Fincher was trying to establish, for instance, that Amy's recollections of their early relationship were totally fabricated, but over the span of the movie it just seemed to vacillate between comedy, camp, tension-building, and ultimately horror, but with no harmony between them. I hope Fincher can move away from airport novels about women wilfully or inadvertently becoming the objects of abuse and violence (even if it is self inflicted) and apply himself to something more in line with the Social Network for his next project.
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Oct 3, 2014 05:08
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:Edit: also, lol at Fincher and Flynn claiming the ending was going to be changed, if wasn't. That's outstanding, I love it. As soon as I read that Flynn was re-writing the ending, I assumed this would be a possibility. I really can't conceive of an ending that would justify changing it, for fear of it being worse.
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Oct 3, 2014 05:13
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Remember, all people should know about any of the characters going in is that the wife is missing and the husband may be a suspect. I know what the major talking point is gonna be but be a lil delicate on the day the movie comes out, some of y'all.
Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Oct 3, 2014 |
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Oct 3, 2014 05:20
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Just saw this with a couple of friends and goddamn it was pretty good I think. We were tense the entire time and super disturbed at a bunch of scenes. Really liked the movie also score was fantastic, real creeped out drat.
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Oct 3, 2014 06:20
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In terms of the misogyny claims, in a lot of ways I like Amy more than Nick (although they are both terrible people). To be completely honest, I felt almost no remorse for Desi, and I loved the gore of that death scene, after how clean the rest of the film had been. The most laugh out loud moment of the film for me was Affleck's awkward "uh, you guys want to day anything?" to Amy's parents at the vigil.
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Oct 3, 2014 06:20
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My god. I definitely still have to process that, though it was definitely an engrossing experience for better or worse. I knew the big twist coming in, but smaller things like Amy getting her dumb rear end robbed, or Desi getting his throat cut still shocked the hell out of me. I kinda understand where people are coming from with saying the movie is misogynistic, though the only characters who end up having more than one layer to them are Nick, Margo, Tanner and the cop lady. Everyone else kinda got the one note to play, and when your one note is "The Worst Woman in the World", you kinda really have to ramp up the evil in order to make an impression, and it loving worked. It's a femme fatale drawn to the next level, and considering most of the supporting players were women, I can see where "this movie makes women look bad" comes from, but it really makes everyone look bad. Even the other ex who got fake-raped wasn't particularly sympathetic. This will attract a certain type of people, certainly, but movies like Wolf of Wall Street or (Fincher's own) Fight Club did the same, without diminishing their quality or impact. edit: Also, Ben Affleck was perfectly cast, because who better to play The World's Most Unbelievable Man than someone who couldn't say something without a hint of insincerity to save his life. Yoshifan823 fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Oct 3, 2014 |
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Oct 3, 2014 09:05
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Venkmanologist posted:If you watch this with your SO and you both come away saying anything other than "Holy poo poo they're both completely hosed up" I'd say you have problems. Seriously why would this be awkward or weird for a couple? Bown posted:This really came across to me as an MRA's wet dream. Impeccably-directed, shot, scored, and acted, but Amy definitely comes across as a psycho bitch to me. They could have pulled it off if they delved more into why she was like this, but "my husband was cheating on me so I concocted this elaborate plan to frame him etc" is totally nuts. I can't agree with Flynn that the motive is there. Plus a lot of it was like "the justice system is stacked against men!!!" although that's the lesser issue here. If people take that from the film I think it will be a Fight Club situation again. The twist, I'm sure, is meant play both with men's fears and with women's fantasy, albeit in a overtly shocking manner, while making Amy a character you can relate to when you see her cleverly moving around a men's world. Sure, she's a sociopath straight out of a Batman book, but Nick's not quite sane on his own and people love the Joker for a reason.
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Oct 3, 2014 10:08
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Honest Thief posted:If people take that from the film I think it will be a Fight Club situation again. The twist, I'm sure, is meant play both with men's fears and with women's fantasy, albeit in a overtly shocking manner, while making Amy a character you can relate to when you see her cleverly moving around a men's world. Sure, she's a sociopath straight out of a Batman book, but Nick's not quite sane on his own and people love the Joker for a reason. How is film Nick not sane? I've heard that his character is far more ambiguous in the book - but at least in the film he comes across as an entirely reasonable normal, nice man. Perhaps I missed something, do you have any examples?
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Oct 3, 2014 10:48
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Mr. Flunchy posted:How is film Nick not sane? I've heard that his character is far more ambiguous in the book - but at least in the film he comes across as an entirely reasonable normal, nice man. Perhaps I missed something, do you have any examples? My take from the ending that he actually loves her, and not sane I guess is too harsh, but he's wholly in that symbiotic relationship 100%, like his twin feared.
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Oct 3, 2014 10:52
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Honest Thief posted:My take from the ending that he actually loves her, and not sane I guess is too harsh, but he's wholly in that symbiotic relationship 100%, like his twin feared. My take was that he's taken the pragmatic decision to remain in a sham relationship for the sake of his unborn child. It's a heroic sacrifice.
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Oct 3, 2014 11:03
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Yoshifan823 posted:I kinda understand where people are coming from with saying the movie is misogynistic, though the only characters who end up having more than one layer to them are Nick, Margo, Tanner and the cop lady. Everyone else kinda got the one note to play, and when your one note is "The Worst Woman in the World", you kinda really have to ramp up the evil in order to make an impression, and it loving worked. It's a femme fatale drawn to the next level, and considering most of the supporting players were women, I can see where "this movie makes women look bad" comes from, but it really makes everyone look bad. Even the other ex who got fake-raped wasn't particularly sympathetic. The problem I have with this response is that while every character ends up looking bad (except for the sister, I guess), the movie really presents Nick as the protagonist, and after the point where he confesses his infidelity, he pretty much just becomes a sympathetic character, while Amy becomes a full-on psycho bitch stereotype. And while both of them have negative characteristics, you can't seriously tell me that as the audience we aren't expected to consider the guy having an affair because his marriage sucks to be equal to the woman who spends months (years?) trying to frame her husband for murder with an elaborate, drawn out plan so that he'll get executed. The way the two characters are represented are just so categorically different that I really can't believe that most of the audience left the theatre saying, "you know what? They were both equally bad." Plus, when at a time like this you're including plot devices like repeated false accusations of rape and a woman stealing a man's semen to impregnate herself as a punishment against him, you have to have some tact. These are not just dramatic plot points but harmful stereotypes that are still pervasive and have really set women back. These motifs are not even in the same ballpark of severity as "husband has sex with young female student."
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Oct 3, 2014 13:18
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Mr. Flunchy posted:My take was that he's taken the pragmatic decision to remain in a sham relationship for the sake of his unborn child. It's a heroic sacrifice. It's not. Nick is a narcissist who loves Amy's attention and allows her to be a caricature in his mind rather than truly making an effort to understand her. He was blind to her more insane qualities because he wanted to be. He's also violent and yes, did cheat on her. At the end he's fully enabling her behaviour and it's not just about the child. You can see that he definitely enjoyed her being back even I he pretended not to.
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Oct 3, 2014 13:39
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:It's not. Nick is a narcissist who loves Amy's attention and allows her to be a caricature in his mind rather than truly making an effort to understand her. He was blind to her more insane qualities because he wanted to be. He's also violent and yes, did cheat on her. At the end he's fully enabling her behaviour and it's not just about the child. You can see that he definitely enjoyed her being back even I he pretended not to. I didn't see that at all. He's clearly miserable as gently caress in the closing scenes. Before Amy drops the pregnancy bomb on him he looks set to go scorched earth on her on national television.
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Oct 3, 2014 13:42
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MeinPanzer posted:The problem I have with this response is that while every character ends up looking bad (except for the sister, I guess), the movie really presents Nick as the protagonist, and after the point where he confesses his infidelity, he pretty much just becomes a sympathetic character, while Amy becomes a full-on psycho bitch stereotype. And while both of them have negative characteristics, you can't seriously tell me that as the audience we aren't expected to consider the guy having an affair because his marriage sucks to be equal to the woman who spends months (years?) trying to frame her husband for murder with an elaborate, drawn out plan so that he'll get executed. The way the two characters are represented are just so categorically different that I really can't believe that most of the audience left the theatre saying, "you know what? They were both equally bad." For what it's worth, in the source material it's exactly like that, and it's the reason some people (myself included) thought the quality takes a huge nosedive after it's revealed Amy is alive. It's douche versus psychopath.
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Oct 3, 2014 13:57
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I can already tell this is going to be the most controversial movie of the year and I'm kind of looking forward to it.
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Oct 3, 2014 14:17
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Doctor Spaceman posted:For what it's worth, in the source material it's exactly like that, and it's the reason some people (myself included) thought the quality takes a huge nosedive after it's revealed Amy is alive. It's douche versus psychopath. Right, and I would totally be more generous with reading both the book and the movie as satire intended to play with and subvert those tropes if it weren't for the tone deaf statement the author made in responding to her critics and the lack of effort on Fincher's part to make Nick appear less sympathetic.
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Oct 3, 2014 14:24
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This movie is great y'all, and one of the things being ignored in the misogyny debate is that while Amy goes off the deep end, the movie also places the blame of it on her parents. It doesn't make a big show of it, but Fincher and Flynn make sure that it's mentioned. She has a series of books written about her in which a perfect version of her gets to grow up with an ideal life. It plays Cello, it gets the dog that she wasn't allowed to have. She's conditioned, from such a young age, to pretend to be someone else. It's no surprise that they keep referring to her as 'Amazing Amy' even as an adult. The end result is a psyche that has to keep up the delusion no matter the cost. It's why they both agree to have the baby, even though neither one of them really want it, it keeps up the delusion. This in turn plays in to Affleck's character at the end. He's essentially a pussy. And a needy one at that. It makes it clear how reliant he is on Amy and he was willing to go through his own delusion just to please her. From the moment they meet they're both pretending to be something they're not. And for as big of a satire on marriage as it is, at the heart of it is a message about just telling the truth. There's a reason that word gets thrown around a few times. By the end when he tells her what a oval office she is, she's right when she says he'll be bored with an average wife because that isn't what he wants at all. He can leave at any time. He's already been put through the ringer by the media, but he keeps putting it off like he always has. For gently caress sake she even tucks him into bed at night. I can't see it as misogynist when it's hyper critical to two damaged people (And when the most sympathetic character, and voice of reason, is a woman). It's a story about a toxic relationship though, and how it just feeds on the damage people inflict.
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Oct 3, 2014 16:29
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I like the book and movie about the same, but my feelings are the opposite. Loved the first half or so of the book, didn't like the conclusion. In the movie I think they bungled the first half hard (it feels very awkward), but Fincher makes the second half and conclusion work. That's probably because a lot of the more prevalent elements from the book, like the recession, the town's poor economy, the failures of its characters, the commentary on post-recession US, take more of a back seat to the narrative. They're still there, but it's more about setting the tone. The abandoned mall is described thoroughly in the book, but here it's just a brief part of one of many montages (Fincher loves montages!). Maybe someone with a better memory of the book can confirm this, but didn't Amy have a plan to hurt Nick if he tried to divorce her post-return?
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Oct 3, 2014 17:08
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I loved the look of that abandoned mall. Wish we'd spent more time there.
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Oct 3, 2014 17:17
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DrVenkman posted:This movie is great y'all, and one of the things being ignored in the misogyny debate is that while Amy goes off the deep end, the movie also places the blame of it on her parents. It doesn't make a big show of it, but Fincher and Flynn make sure that it's mentioned. She has a series of books written about her in which a perfect version of her gets to grow up with an ideal life. It plays Cello, it gets the dog that she wasn't allowed to have. She's conditioned, from such a young age, to pretend to be someone else. It's no surprise that they keep referring to her as 'Amazing Amy' even as an adult. The end result is a psyche that has to keep up the delusion no matter the cost. It's why they both agree to have the baby, even though neither one of them really want it, it keeps up the delusion. Both the author and Fincher (because Fincher made the specific decision to adapt this book and apparently stick fairly close to the original story) could have shown how damaged Amy's psyche was in a number of ways, but instead they chose to draw on common tropes of the stereotypical crazy manipulative woman who abuses her position as a woman to attack men. quote:I can't see it as misogynist when it's hyper critical to two damaged people (And when the most sympathetic character, and voice of reason, is a woman). It's a story about a toxic relationship though, and how it just feeds on the damage people inflict. See what I wrote above in response to this. While the film portrays both characters as damaged individuals, it clearly portrays Amy much more critically than it does Nick, and the latter appears much more sympathetic than the former. The key here in my mind is Nick's encounter with the ex falsely accused of rape. The ex says that the only reason Amy ruined his life is because he began to become distant when he realized that the relationship wasn't going where he wanted it to - and the movie makes no effort to refute this. Amy is shown to be a psychopath purely out to ruin the lives of men who try to get away from her, while Nick is depicted as someone drawn into a relationship that became an unhappy marriage who then had an affair to escape; even if Nick is sleazy, the portrayals are not at all equally critical.
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Oct 3, 2014 18:04
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MeinPanzer posted:Both the author and Fincher (because Fincher made the specific decision to adapt this book and apparently stick fairly close to the original story) could have shown how damaged Amy's psyche was in a number of ways, but instead they chose to draw on common tropes of the stereotypical crazy manipulative woman who abuses her position as a woman to attack men. At the same time NPH's character Dessi is shown to be a massive creep and everytime he was on screen it was very unsettling, like when he kissed her on the forehead and stuff. Just loving weird man and you can definitely see why Amy got that restraining order on him and stuff. "This time I won't let you get away Amy." Amy was clearly hosed up growing up thanks to her parents, but Nick was also pretty messed up as well considering his dad situation and then his mom dying and stuff. Him cheating on her and doing the exact same thing he did with Amy must have set Amy off super hard. Especially considering he had no money as well and he was spending her money on like macbooks and poo poo, the bar, new home. I don't know man I thought it was a good movie about hosed up people and the hosed up way the news media attacks people as well.
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Oct 3, 2014 18:47
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Saw it last night with friends and everyone really enjoyed it. Smart writing, smart directing, good acting and extremely entertaining and twisted. I was laughing a lot at the situation in the 2nd half where everyone has to keep up the insane charade of lies to try and get what they want and nobody gets what they want... they'll be stuck in hell for the rest of their lives. I love comedy that's as black as a gravitational singularity. The best film I've seen so far this year.
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Oct 3, 2014 19:46
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I really liked how the "cool girl" scene was handled in this movie as well. It's probably one of the most overtly feminist statements in a recent mainstream film.
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Oct 3, 2014 22:06
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I saw this at a mostly empty afternoon showing. The only other people besides my friend and I were a few elderly people. During the last act when Affleck is telling Amy about all the poo poo they've been through and have done to each other and Amy simply responds "that's marriage" an old man, probably in his 80s, in front of me let out such a satisfyingly agreeing snicker and that completely made the movie for me.
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Oct 3, 2014 22:54
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BOAT SHOWBOAT posted:I really liked how the "cool girl" scene was handled in this movie as well. It's probably one of the most overtly feminist statements in a recent mainstream film. This was one of my favorite bits from the book so I'm glad they kept it.
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Oct 3, 2014 23:03
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:This was one of my favorite bits from the book so I'm glad they kept it. Which part was that? I saw the movie tonight and really enjoyed it. Especially the part where Amy kills Desi and the music blares up and she's all covered in blood on the bed and camera is fading in and out. poo poo was super visceral goddamn.
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Oct 4, 2014 00:31
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There's room for a sympathetic reading of Amy, but other people are right, Affleck is portrayed way too sympathetically after it's revealed Amy is still alive. From then on he's just basically a good dude waging war against a murderess succubus. Also, they sort of talked around the idea of implicating the parents in how hosed up Amy is, but never really in the foreground. That could've also really helped her seem more real/sympathetic. There's a lot of really good stuff in the movie but as other people have pointed out some really weird and frankly disappointing choices by Fincher. Tyler Perry is surprisingly great though. I enjoyed him in every scene and would gladly watch another movie about his law firm.
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Oct 4, 2014 00:31
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Well that was gutwrenching. It's certainly a significant question to ask how to receive Amy in our modern culture - on the one hand, I love the story and the character, but on the other hand, yeah, it kinda does play into the MRA thing. Flynn's not wrong that we shouldn't be allowed to have these characters but it's not a film in a vacuum, and as unreliable a protagonist Nick is, he's put very firmly in the "victim" position. On its own merits, it was great (it reminded me of Mildred Pierce). It's been a long time since a movie's pulled me that taught, and it's great that Fincher follows it through to the sour ending, which is about as nauseatingly bleak as you can get (in a good way). The last segment did seem a little awkwardly paced, though I get the necessity of showing the degree to which Nick is trapped, and, possibly, sorta willing. She's absolutely right that he couldn't handle anything less than her.
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Oct 4, 2014 00:50
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I don't know if I have much to add to this conversation, but I think it's worth pointing out that Edward Norton's character in Fight Club was also painted as a victim.
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Oct 4, 2014 03:05
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Actually, there is one other thing I can add. Once Amy's conducting her interview in the hospital, it's the female detective who starts poking holes in her story before her male boss, who clearly only came for a victory lap with the press, steps in to white-knight Amy, shutting the whole thing down and using his power to keep her from doing her job, possibly even punishing her further since she's taking the heat for "a bungled investigation." Yes, this film is a hand grenade in a very passionate discussion about the marginalization of women, but I wonder if it's more of a reflection of the environment we're in than a misogynistic statement. Women have been poo poo on for so long that there is a violent but necessary pushback against it, and that pushback creates an opening for certain women to take advantage. Does that mean there shouldn't be such a pushback? gently caress no, and I don't recall the movie ever suggesting as much. What it does suggest, first and foremost, is that these two horrible people pretty much loving deserve each other, even if one was victimized by the other. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Oct 4, 2014 |
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Oct 4, 2014 03:33
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eshock posted:There's room for a sympathetic reading of Amy, but other people are right, Affleck is portrayed way too sympathetically after it's revealed Amy is still alive. From then on he's just basically a good dude waging war against a murderess succubus. Not to pick on you, but... this is a sentiment a lot of people seem to have about this movie; namely that Ben Affleck's character is Sympathetic, that the antagonist is one dimensional, and that this makes this movie misogynistic. I just got back from seeing this myself, and I gotta ask you guys: were we watching the same movie? Because Nick Dunn is not sympathetic. At all. Ever. He breathes insincerity and is just as fake as Amy, even more so, maybe. People say that Amy embodies the "psycho bitch" stereotype, the great fear everywhere that women are just evil sluts using men to get what they want, and while that is somewhat true (and probable intentional), Nick is a stereotype too. If Amy is the Psycho Bitch (tm), Nick is the Nice Guy (tm), the oh-so-sweet fellow that plies you at a party and sweeps you off your feet with kindness, but all in service to get sex, to get good food, to get clean sheets... to get a wife. In Nicks, case, he gets all that, and money; for videogames, for a new house, for a bar. You can see his gift giving in the very beginning and know the kind of man he is: he gets his sister a board game she never liked (but he did, and it gets added to his bar anyway) and gets his wife a kite, because she's "never flown a kite before." Classic Nice Guy behavior: doing what he wants to do (move back home get a house, get a bar) while telling others and himself that it's for her sake. You get the very distinct impression that people don't really mean much to him; he pays more attention to his cat than any other human! He's revealed to everyone as a lying, cheating scumfuck, but while Amy has to go on the run and deal with thieves and creepy rapey ex boyfriends, Nick gets some help from a lawyer, has a loyal sister who looks out for him, avoids jail time and is treated even by the audience as a kind of hero! Isn't that interesting that a woman gets punished for playing to a stereotype and a man gets rewarded for doing the same, even by the audience members? Funny, that. That, in the end, is what this movie is about; it's not only a satire of society and the masks we wear, but the nightmares that keep us wearing those masks. Everyone except for the sympathetic characters (the sister and the lady detective) is representative of the desire to be loved by our peers, friends, family, and the fear that none of those people ever truly loved us. You have the parents who exploited Amy's childhood for wealth and fame, and who can't appear in public, even plead for help in finding their missing daughter, without a plug for their stupid books; you've the helpful, friendly strangers that turn on you and steal from you the minute you show more money than they do; you have the former boyfriend who helps you out only to lock you in a prison for sex; you have the media personalities who feign outrage over your actions one day only to treat you like a saint another, and always the ghoulish crowd, snapping selfies and searching for autographs, not because they give a drat about anyone involved, but because everyone loves a good story. It's all about image and fame, and that's why Amy is the central character to the piece. The image of something, of a perfect woman, a perfect man, the perfect marriage, was shown to her to be the most important thing, thanks to her parents, so she spends her life cultivating perfection and searching for fame. That's her driving force, more than a desire to use or destroy Nick or any other of her boyfriends; think of how engrossed she is in her image on TV. People will say that its a desire to destroy men that Amy does what she does and is so happy with the results but that isn't it. It's that, for the first time in her life, she is more important, more famous, and more loved, than the character in her loving parent's books. So yeah... Tremendous movie, first really good one of so-called Oscar season. Hope it does well, and that Rosamund Pike gets some accolades, because she really knocked it out of the park with this one.
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Oct 4, 2014 03:35
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I found it amusing that Rosamund Pike managed to show everything but a nipple in that movie. Does she have a no nudity clause or something?
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Oct 4, 2014 03:37
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resurgam40 posted:Because Nick Dunn is not sympathetic. At all. Ever. He breathes insincerity and is just as fake as Amy, even more so, maybe. People say that Amy embodies the "psycho bitch" stereotype, the great fear everywhere that women are just evil sluts using men to get what they want, and while that is somewhat true (and probable intentional), Nick is a stereotype too. If Amy is the Psycho Bitch (tm), Nick is the Nice Guy (tm), the oh-so-sweet fellow that plies you at a party and sweeps you off your feet with kindness, but all in service to get sex, to get good food, to get clean sheets... to get a wife. In Nicks, case, he gets all that, and money; for videogames, for a new house, for a bar. You can see his gift giving in the very beginning and know the kind of man he is: he gets his sister a board game she never liked (but he did, and it gets added to his bar anyway) and gets his wife a kite, because she's "never flown a kite before." Classic Nice Guy behavior: doing what he wants to do (move back home get a house, get a bar) while telling others and himself that it's for her sake. You get the very distinct impression that people don't really mean much to him; he pays more attention to his cat than any other human! He's revealed to everyone as a lying, cheating scumfuck, but while Amy has to go on the run and deal with thieves and creepy rapey ex boyfriends, Nick gets some help from a lawyer, has a loyal sister who looks out for him, avoids jail time and is treated even by the audience as a kind of hero! Isn't that interesting that a woman gets punished for playing to a stereotype and a man gets rewarded for doing the same, even by the audience members? Funny, that. I'm just going to spoiler everything here although I do wonder why people who haven't seen a film are reading the thread about it! She was going to get him killed. Yea he's selfish and a cheat. But she was going to actually get him killed. And kill herself too, even! While I'm not going to say that Ben Affleck was some sort of great guy he's still only doing 'normal' shithead stuff instead of absolutely insane stuff. Amy doesn't HAVE to go on the run, Amy goes on the run because she's trying to get her husband killed. Nor do I think he ever said moving was for her sake - although I do wonder why he stayed there and why she got him the bar. Why not just move away after his mother died? The only explanation I can think of is to look after his dad, but it's not really stated that he needs to do that. Aside from the misogynistic angle of the film though, I felt there were a few plot holes that I'd like to be explained. The main thing that confused me was that NPH had cameras all around his house. Yet apparently the only thing they recorded was her pretending that she'd been raped? What about all the other stuff like her sitting quietly with him for dinner, her arriving a week after she'd been "kidnapped" and all sorts of other stuff? It just seemed like the cameras only showed the thing that supported her story and nothing else, it just didn't make any sense at all.
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Oct 4, 2014 03:49
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resurgam40 posted:Because Nick Dunn is not sympathetic. At all. Ever. He breathes insincerity and is just as fake as Amy, even more so, maybe. People say that Amy embodies the "psycho bitch" stereotype, the great fear everywhere that women are just evil sluts using men to get what they want, and while that is somewhat true (and probable intentional), Nick is a stereotype too. If Amy is the Psycho Bitch (tm), Nick is the Nice Guy (tm), the oh-so-sweet fellow that plies you at a party and sweeps you off your feet with kindness, but all in service to get sex, to get good food, to get clean sheets... to get a wife. In Nicks, case, he gets all that, and money; for videogames, for a new house, for a bar. You can see his gift giving in the very beginning and know the kind of man he is: he gets his sister a board game she never liked (but he did, and it gets added to his bar anyway) and gets his wife a kite, because she's "never flown a kite before." Classic Nice Guy behavior: doing what he wants to do (move back home get a house, get a bar) while telling others and himself that it's for her sake. You get the very distinct impression that people don't really mean much to him; he pays more attention to his cat than any other human! He's revealed to everyone as a lying, cheating scumfuck, but while Amy has to go on the run and deal with thieves and creepy rapey ex boyfriends, Nick gets some help from a lawyer, has a loyal sister who looks out for him, avoids jail time and is treated even by the audience as a kind of hero! Isn't that interesting that a woman gets punished for playing to a stereotype and a man gets rewarded for doing the same, even by the audience members? Funny, that. I mean, I think being mildly obnoxious is on an entirely different level from going out of your way to ruin people's lives and murdering someone during sex, then continuing to gently caress him while he bleeds out. Maybe that's just me, though. Like, he's at 0.1 megahitlers on the rear end in a top hat scale whereas she's easily at 2 or 3.
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Oct 4, 2014 03:52
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SALT CURES HAM posted:I mean, I think being mildly obnoxious is on an entirely different level from going out of your way to ruin people's lives and murdering someone during sex, then continuing to gently caress him while he bleeds out. Maybe that's just me, though. Okay, I'm going to drag you from the only life you've ever known, put down roots in a place you're completely unfamiliar with, and suck up what little money you have to your name in the process. And I'm going to use you like a cumrag and also bang someone twenty years younger. But you'll get over it because it's only "mildly obnoxious." Your point is your point, a murderous psychopath is worse than a selfish toolbox. But let's not pretend that he didn't have her under his own form of oppression, and he gets away with it on pure charisma. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Oct 4, 2014 |
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Oct 4, 2014 04:07
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DivisionPost posted:Okay, I'm going to drag you from the only life you've ever known, put down roots in a place you're completely unfamiliar with, and suck up what little money you have to your name in the process. And I'm going to use you like a cumrag and also bang someone twenty years younger. But you'll get over it because it's only "mildly obnoxious." With the exception of him cheating we don't even know how much of that is true. Remember that the using for sex stuff was in her diary so it's probably not true. The stuff about the baby is probably not true (in that she says he doesn't want one, but in a flashback) and really I don't know how you're finding him that bad. The affair is the only truly lovely thing he does.
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Oct 4, 2014 04:11
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