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weekly font posted:I thought it was confirmed by Fincher they're changing the ending. It's gone back and forth a lot on what's actually been changed. Affleck remarked to Flynn when he read the script "You've changed the whole ending" but it could likely be that he means the tone of it has changed rather than the nuts and bolts of what happens. I think Fincher has said they basically tweaked the end and it's still faithful to the book. Flynn herself downplayed the changes made recently and said it wasn't anything major.
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Sep 20, 2014 14:45
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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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Zwabu posted:Yeah. Another poster addressed this saying the cameras only covered the outside, but there are a lot of issues. As someone else posted, what about her showing up initially (recorded) under no duress at all? Time stamped to be a while after she said she was brought there. To be fair, regarding this the movie does go into it a bit Neither Affleck nor Kim Dickens believe her story, which is evident when Dickens asks her to clarify some points. It's then that Amy basically says "Can we please go back to the time I was kidnapped and raped instead of your trivial questions." Note that the only woman in the room is the lone dissenter. Anyway, Dickens then mentions the FBI took over and they closed the book on it because they don't care. They've seen it as something that was hugely mishandled, and want it to go away. Besides. If they do have her on tape arriving at the house there's nothing to stop her from saying she was too scared to do anything. The only scene I didn't initially like is when Nick visits the ex who was accused of rape. It's largely unnecessary but it does serve the purpose that Amy can't just leave a relationship, she has to scorch the earth before she can move on and reinvent herself again for the next man. It's still a great movie though, and it's jet black in its comedy. It feels like I'm watching a Brian DePalma movie. I could easily see this coming out between BODY DOUBLE and DRESSED TO KILL.
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Oct 4, 2014 16:28
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Yeah I mean there's never any cast really doubt on it, and Nick certainly takes it at face value. There's no opposing view offered, and the story the guy tells is reasonable enough. Like I said it's the only scene in the movie I don't like that much, though I do appreciate it for offering more view into Amy's psyche. What's interesting is that Neil Patrick Harris is deliberately ambiguous when Nick meets him. I'm not sure if it explains it in the book, but at least in the film you're unsure if he was as bad as Amy makes out.
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Oct 4, 2014 18:14
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Yeah if anything I think that the movie does speak to some idea that we're also shaped by our parents, and that's a thing we can't help. Both Amy and Nick are presumably twisted in different ways (Amy by her Mother, Nick by his Father). Nick tries to deny he's just like his father until he can't deny it anymore. As for the diary entries, I think what people are missing is that, in the early going at least, they are real. Someone said they were like a Zach Braff movie and that's exactly right, because they're both playing a part. They manufacture these perfect moments. It ties in to the ultimate theme of the movie, which is about truth and 'The Truth'. Affleck plays this perfect guy who ticks all the boxes for her (Charming, funny, romantic, goes down on her) which she returns by being the perfect girl for him. They both shape and mold themselves and one another into an ideal and it becomes toxic when you can't keep up the pretence anymore.
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Oct 5, 2014 10:43
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Let's not forget, that in a funny little joke, Amy writes those personality tests for magazines when she first meets Nick.
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Oct 5, 2014 15:34
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Venkmanologist posted:Time to add some gasoline to this fire. Thing is, I love the movie, but I can't agree with that because the idea of a femme-fatale who outsmarts those around her isn't exactly new. I mean, for a time Amy basically turns into Linda Florentino from THE LAST SEDUCTION. That article only works if you ignore a lot of other movies that have done the same thing.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:18
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Pycckuu posted:I saw this movie and thought it was good. I don't get why people think its misogynist, unless they think an obvious psychopath is supposed to represent all women? :There's a whole load of spoilers below: Because it's problematic when she plays into very real misogynist fears. When you get that close to the line it's easy for people to think you've gone too far. Personally, I have no problem with what the movie does, but I can certainly see why people would. In defence of the naysayers, the movie and the character revels in those tropes, but to no real end. Take the scene with the ex, it's pretty clear that the movie wants you to know that Amy lied about the sexual assault. But what does that really serve? We already know that Amy is dishonest because we're witnessing it. It's much better served in the scene with Desi. Nick confronts him and says this is what Amy said. However NPH is ambiguous in his response. He doesn't answer it, but he's clearly thinking about it. It leaves the door open to interpretation. I think that Amy contorts herself to be the thing that men fear the most. Just as she contorts herself to be the girlfriend that men want the most. It's a comment on what we do to please our partners, and how that has a flipside to it. I said before but I think ultimately the movie is about just being honest. If Amy and Nick weren't lying about who they were from the start then things wouldn't have been as twisted as they ended up being. Which is why the scene with the ex is a shame. It's a stronger movie if you believe that Amy is a product of a lovely upbringing and a sham marriage. It's a little less fun when the movie seems to point out that nope, he just married a psycho lady. It almost makes Nick entirely sympathetic, because it seems to be saying that the moment their marriage started to waver, she would've gone full Amy on him.
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Oct 8, 2014 15:25
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K. Waste posted:Why are people so certain that Desi's relationship with her is ambiguous, but the ex's isn't? Desi isn't the only character whose overtly sick nature creates ambiguity. Amy's plan to deceive the world abjectly fails at least once when she's robbed by Jeff and Greta, the latter of whom makes a deliberate point about how obviously bad Amy is at 'faking it.' This is compounded further by Detective Boney's rebuffed interrogation at the end of the film. The point of the film is continually that what appears on the surface is not always the case. Desi is not just a scared, pathetic depressive who 'wants to help,' but a controlling maniac with possible OCD. Nick is not just a pathetic, incapacitated hubby, but a cheating and petty manipulator who -- because it is revealed that Amy's diary entry on the matter is a deceit -- thinks that a baby will solve the problems in his marriage by 'giving the bitch something to do.' Why should we suspect that Amy just wantonly eats men for no reason? Because when Nick visits the ex, it's established that she's in full on lying mode (Isn't he also the one that Nick knows nothing about at the start, because Amy hadn't mentioned him?). So the scene plays out without any sort of ambiguity. We hear the ex's story and hear how she's ruined his life. Nick nods and moves on. The movie, nor either of the characters, provide any sort of counter-point. The movie offers no reason to think he's lying, and the scene comes at a point where it wants you to know how far her lives go. Lest we forget that finally, the machinations of that plot are meant to mirror what she's doing at the moment to Nick. She was tied up with the ties that she bought him and he rebuffed. The scene, to me, seemed to push the point that Amy has a history of striking out against the men she feels have wronged her. The scene with Desi is different because it's played completely differently. Nick straight up says you know who I am, here's what Amy said about you and I need to know if it's true. Desi deliberately doesn't answer and NPH plays it vague enough that you don't know if Amy was telling the truth or not (I think it's interesting in the book that Amy lied about his suicide attempt, but the movie leaves it out there).
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Oct 8, 2014 16:18
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Cross posting this, but for those who want it, Richard 'Donnie Darko' Kelly wrote an essay about the links between GONE GIRL and EYES WIDE SHUT. http://ronaldtaverner.tumblr.com/post/99275372547/gone-girl-and-eyes-wide-shut-a-study-of
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Oct 8, 2014 19:42
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Pycckuu posted:I disagree with you here. I think that's exactly what makes her an effective villain. The fears that you refer to as "misogynist" are being used by Fincher because the trust and comfort are the very fragile foundation of a relationship. Having a psychopath exploit those fears for personal gain makes the story more disturbing to the viewer. Oh don't get me wrong, I'm agreeing with you, I was just explaining how people can see it as being misogynistic. I can certainly see why those arguments are taking place. Also, people should read that Richard Kelly essay I posted. He talks about the use of a blood sacrifice in this and EYES WIDE SHUT as a way to strengthen marriage.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:48
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:The one thing that I do think the book just straight-up did better than the movie is make Nick seem like an actual, credible suspect for Amy's murder in the first half. I think Fincher et al thought the casting of Ben Affleck would kind of do their work for them - and honestly, it does for the most part - but they lean too hard on "sympathetic" from the beginning. The book is much more unsparing in depicting Nick as a guy that has major problems with women, and the twist comes at just the right moment when you're starting to think "goddamn, this guy totally did it." One of the most impressive things about the book is that it conveys the feeling from the start that there's an unreliable narrator, but it turns out it's not the narrator you think it is. One thing I liked about his performance is that he just seems sad. It's in the way he carries himself during the current day scenes. He has a lot less to do than Pike, but he still manages, in such short time, to establish the differences between the different versions of Nick that we see.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:14
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Late Unpleasantness posted:This was the best movie to watch in a theater with 75% old marrieds. Pretty rampant cackling at all the right notes on marriage and proper awe for violence. I thought it was a subtle touch that her Father seems to be as meek as Nick ends up being. I don't know if it's the same as in the book but it's clearly stated, in the few times we see them, that her Mother is the more dominant one. It's an interesting background detail that nonetheless informs Amy's character. Also, for what it's worth, I think Amy is largely telling the truth in her diaries, right up until anything where she has to implicate Nick. He obviously had an affair and was becoming distant, but I don't think he hit her, and their conversation at the end sorts out the baby debate. That's not absolving Nick, it's just that she makes up scenes to fit her narrative, but everything up until his affair appears to be true.
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Oct 18, 2014 16:42
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Surlaw posted:Yes, she says she invented the abuse. She also tells Nick at the end that he has to play along with the abuse story, and the girl who robs her sees through her story and says she's obviously never really been hit before. Yeah to cover their asses he has to admit that he did hit her one time and that he did all the spending on the credit card as well. It fits her narrative of the couple that went through some really hard times but came out of it stronger than ever.
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Oct 19, 2014 11:44
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Steve2911 posted:Nick definitely identifies/empathises with them more than the rest of the community though. The film doesn't go into it as much but he gives more of a poo poo about helping out the people hit by the recession than he does about finding Amy half the time. Interestingly enough the movie re-contextualises this though. It's not clear exactly what his motives are and if he's genuine when he talks to the homeless guy or if it's a cynical ploy to appear that he's a good guy.
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Oct 20, 2014 22:14
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