Why You Root for Gone Girl's Amy Dunne 

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Amy: “I watched Adam Sandler movies.” That, alone, is enough to drive anyone over the edge into insanity.

I love the character of Amy Dunn. To me, she's a villain in a story with no heroes. It's so rare to see a truly evil villain in a female character.

"The idea that a woman's character can't or shouldn’t be evil is sexist in itself."

Great video, but I wish you hadn't glossed over the character of Desi (Neil Patrick Harris) and how he treated Amy. Amy didn't "throw him away when he was no longer useful." She decides to kill Desi after he starts treating her like an object and fantasy again. Even though he believes she has just escaped a horrific, abusive marriage, he immediately tells her to dye her hair, dress in sexy clothing, and get back in shape, so she can be the beautiful, flawless version of Amy that he's been obsessing over for years. He expects her to sleep with him and run away with him after only a day of recuperation. In the same way that Nick demanded her to be "Cool Girl," Desi demands her to be "Sophisticated Sexpot." Desi also disparages Nick for his abuse, but doesn't recognize that he himself abused Amy by stalking her and threatening to commit suicide if she left him. In the end, Amy sacrifices the abusive relationship where she holds no power (Desi) to return to the abusive relationship where she knows she holds all the power (Nick). Nick's victimhood at the end of the movie is clear to everyone, but most people overlook that Amy is still a victim. She chose the least miserable option she had left -- which also happened to be the one where she gives Nick everything he wanted (the housewife and family in his hometown). It says everything about the role women are forced to play in society.

Rosamund Pike should have won the Oscar for this role... Her "cool girl" monologue lives rent free in my mind

I don’t care, Gone girl had the best “cool girl” monologue.

What made the story so interesting was that with her intelligence, Amy could've easily killed Nick and covered it up if she wanted to. However, her choice to instead punish Nick through public perception gives the whole movie another layer of depth that brings in gender dynamics to explore.

Nick is all men that say "not all men".

"There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold."

Whether you love or hate Amy, you can't deny she is a genius.

The same way men root for Joker, and many other villians...but cry if women root for Amy Dunn

IFF she had divorced Nick, would she have gotten everything that he took from her back? All her money from her trust fund, all the energy she put into this relationship, all the emotional attachment, her life in the city, years of her time spent in this relationship? Amy dunne WAS psycho and doing what she did was fucked up, but the basic truth behind her rage is totally valid. To be used up and then thrown away as though you were nothing but an object meant to serve some selfish moron is a kind of pain that is hard to find relief from.

Ben Affleck is perfect for this role, because he cheated on his wife with a producer, and then he blame her for being an harpy, and most of Hollywood agree with him at the time, calling her controlling and bitchy, but then when it was discover that Affleck used the private jet of his friend to travel to his mistress to Las Vegas, and they discover her identity, all the facade of a wounded husband fall off, in other words, Affleck is not acting in this role, he is being himself.

Rosamund Pike was Jane in Pride and Prejudice, this woman's range is astonishing

“Amy’s rage doesn’t have to be empowering to feel cathartic.” That is such a great distinction. Like no, I don’t think Amy’s is any kind of anti-hero and Nick definitely didn’t deserve to be framed for murder, but f*ck I was kinda of rooting for her to get away with it sometimes.

No one is talking about this enough: HER PARENTS created a psychopath, when creating an alternate version of THEIR REAL DAUGHTER, that would accomplished everything that she would never do, because of this thing called being human. From the perspective of a movie fan, I appreciate providing a female character, a female villain, with such a complexity and depth. As a human being: such a couple of assholes should NEVER have kids. The damage they do for a new born is sometimes irreversible. It's like a cautionary tale for those people who think their kids are their property and they can mess up with them like little projects.

I know that we’re talking about the movie here, but it’s also worth noting that in the book when we are in Nick’s perspective he frequently calls women that he had ANY disagreements with or that inconvenience him in any way a ‘bitch’. Yet in the Goodread’s comments on the book Nick is seen as the ‘normal, average guy’. Him casually using the word bitch shows us how little he actually cares about women.

She was the first female character that I felt paralelled the toxic masculine characters like Tyler Durden, but for women and I've loved that

Also worth noticing is the fact that the male version of the psycho-mastermind like Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter, and Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix's Jokers always win big at the Oscars, yet their female counterparts like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl, and Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman are always left in just the nominations even when the roles are equally challenging.

one of the most interesting points about gone girl is that Amy didn't stalker Andy (Nick's mistress). Her revenge was after Nick

Amy is definitely a psychopath. The reason we sometimes root for her is that we have often seen a Nick behaviour in our husbands, boyfriends,fathers, uncles, brothers and other male relatives. The movie makes us remember that suppressed anger. And seeing Nick get his due makes us feel satisfied. It is probably one of the most cynical movies we will ever see on marriage.

Amy Dunne is the female Joker, Rick Sanchez, Tyler Durden, Michael Corleone, Walter White. She’s morally complex, multifaceted, unpredictable and captivating, and you can’t help but empathise with/admire her while recoiling at the things she does, but more than that she has unique views and experiences that her male counterparts don’t have. Amy is relatable to women on a visceral level. She shares our insecurities, our fears, our frustrations, our pain and heartbreak, our rage. She’s authentically, emphatically female, and her femininity and sexuality shapes her story and character arc in a way that you can’t achieve with males. And good or bad, they’re all integral to the plot and feel completely organic. In short, Amy Dunne is not a villain who happens to be female. She’s a FEMALE VILLAIN. All the qualities we love in a bad guy, but with a few things tailored and added so they fit a woman. She’s believable to the audience because of her gender, not in spite of it.

I've always found it funny how a "bad version" of any person belonging to a marginalised group, will always be under more scrutiny than those who are not. A bad woman is anti-feminist, even if she is well written, but that is never said about a bad man. The Joker's character isn't seen as anti-men, he's just an insane product of society. Amy can't be seen as JUST an insane product of society, no, she's also a bad representation of women, perpetuating negative stereotypes, anti-feminist etc. It's a double standard which I have suppressed rage for.

I think the real tragedy about Amy Dunne is that she would rather settle with a humble guy than use all her privileges/merits for a partner that is on equal foot stance, despite all her wits, intelligence and beauty.

There's still a lot of places where people think it's acceptable for a man to kill his wife if he finds out she's cheating on him. Think about that

I think the most interesting part of Gone Girl, is the fact that most women on the planet, has at some point had dark energy that they’ve been forced to push down. Relating to never being allowed to be “angry” cause it’s not feminine or likable. Like there’s no woman in the world who won’t find some part, even the smallest part somewhat relatable in “Gone Girl”.

I read the book twice and I came to the conclusion that while I don't agree with her actions, her way of viewing the world is pretty damn accurate and that's what I truly love about her, the whole monologue on how many idealize women is incredibly powerful and real.

" he took & took from me til I no longer existed. That's murder. Let the punishment fit the crime" that quote within the " cool girl " dialogue is brilliant! smart how she wielded societies conceptions of a woman as a weapon.

It's not politically correct but I liked Amy because she let herself rage out on a man who hurt her. Men always say they aren't allowed to cry, but women aren't allowed to be angry which is why the worst tropes for women involve women being pissed off ( angry black woman, karen, man hating feminists, mean girl,crazy ex girlfriend etc) No woman wants to be labeled bitter and angry even if it's justifiable but women are socialized to put others needs before our own and when men treat us like crap we're expected to take it on the chin or nurture the shitty behavior out of them. Amy refused to just take it or drag Nicks dumb ass to couples therapy lol Women are tired of taking responsibility for the way men treat us, no matter what background or race you are.

My favorite thing (by which I mean most frustrating and interesting thing) about Gone GIrl was the way the parents saw themselves as perfect, when they treated Amy as just as much of an artificial trophy as Nick did. Of course she would up with someone like that, because the dynamic was familiar to her. I'll always remember the way her father shamed Nick for bringing her--his beautiful daughter--to Nick's "ugly" home town. He felt so righteous, but his treatment of her wasn't any more personal or supportive, and he and his wife will surely never see that. Not that the book needed that, but I would have been satisfied to see her parents get some deeper comeupance.

This video is awesome! Especially the part where she’s begging him, and she’s telling him that he’s turning her into a person she doesn’t want to be! She doesn’t want to nag she doesn’t want to yell she doesn’t want to bug him to do things properly… It just makes you feel like you’re their mother or something! I believe all this crap starts in the home when you’re young… Parents treat their daughters differently than they treat their sons. This is why women are “more mature“ than men! It’s all how they are raised. Amy’s monologue was everything! A lot of us women felt exactly what she was talking about. The fact that you could do everything for a guy, give him your body your soul and do everything for him and then his ass goes and cheats on you with some floozy!!

I watched Gone Girl with my current boyfriend years ago and by the the end of the film he was silent the whole ride home until we arrived at my house and he said “if I’ve ever been lazy, please correct me right away.”

My favourite scene in the movie is when Amy spits in a girl's cup while she's not looking. It's such an immature move from an otherwise calculated character that it makes her villainy borderline cartoonish and I love it.

I read the book Gone Girl and in the book it’s made clear the Amazing Amy book series is her parents’ thinly veiled way of shaming her for not living up to their expectations. I always wonder why she never lashes out at them

She's a villain, but the writer is a hero--for creating a character that plays on our cultural stereotypes like a master. The book has a character that can really see the box people put her into and she works it. I hate the way so many characters pretend we aren't all dealing with these pressures. Edit: I do wonder why she let him put her money into a bar. I do wonder why she's so strong in the film, but she chose away from herself in her move and money choices. Edit2: I really didn't get the people who loved the Gone with the Wind woman, Scarlet. But I watched a really great film about how she's one of the first female character who drives a plot. Whatever we want to say about Amy Dunn, she runs the plot. The viewers are running to keep up the whole time.

the way she did not get an oscar for this makes me so sad

She went too far, but, dare I say it, I kinda sorta understand her.

Both Nick and Amy were in the wrong. Nick cheated on Amy and did the bare minimum in their marriage. Instead of solving their marital problems healthily, Amy went to the extremes. This is why they are perfect for each other. A lot of people didn't like the ending of the book and the movie but I thought it ended how it should have. These two horrible, narcissistic people got what they deserved in the end --- each other.

I actually remember watching the video where the woman says "his only crime; not lavishing her with attention" and being like... girl no

Oh, she's definitely a psychopath, no doubt about that. Why do I root for her? She's absolutely brilliant. Intelligent, determined, quick-witted. I root for her because she absolutely slayed Nick, always two steps ahead, baiting him like a little child throughout the movie. She deserved to win.

omg you articulated why I love her: her revenge is against a culturally-endorsed man child

It’s quite annoying when a writer makes something and people say you’ve mischaracterized women or men, or this shows that women can be xyz, which is negative. If you want to see something where there is no conflict and men and women are painted in a perfect light watch the Brady Bunch

"It depecits a men's right activis's worst nightemare come to vicious, bleeding life" 😂😂😂😂

TW: rape mentions The reason so many women resonate with Amy dunne is the same reason so many men resent her: she embodies the female rage women are supposed to suppress when they are abused/disrespected/let down by the men in their lives, be it a boyfriend, a husband or even the men in their families. Amy gave up so much for nick: she agreed to move with nick out of NYC (even if she didnt want to), she gave him her trustfund that he spent on stupid shit while they were on a tight situation, and then he proceedes to cheat on her with a much younger student. She even said it herself, she was willing to be his Cool Girl and even that wasn't enough. Although I dont agree with all her actions (especially the false rape) and she did benefict from the missing white women syndrome, ultimately she did what she did because she wanted to expose how much of a piece of shit nick dunne truly was. Yes, she could have just divorced, but would that give her back the years and the emotional energy she invested in this relationship when nick was the cause of why it stagnated? I totally understand the rage she felt at being ignored and disrespected by him (especially with the cheating) and wanting to lash out. That's what makes her such a good female villain: we know what she did was wrong, but we can't help it but root for her. And rosamund pike did a brilliant job giving life to Amy dunne! NOTE: just do add that even though it wasn't how she planned, Amy still got what she wanted: nick will forever nationally be known as the jerk who was cheating on his tortured pregnant wife. And from now on, is now nick who will do the pretending.

She’s so iconic. She’s both a feminist and misogynist. A privileged Karen but is fun to watch. Great video!

I think people sometimes don't realize that you can admire a character without overlooking their flaws and justifying their (horrifying terrible evil) mistakes. The movie is feminist in the way that portrays a woman not as an object of a man but as their own protagonist with her machiavellian mind and as a complex human being with different levels of emotions. BUT Amy is not a feminist icon, she's a villain in a movie without heroes (like someone in the comments said I love that comment bcs is the perfect explanation). I like her as a character and she got me to reevaluate a lot of things about myself (which I'd great cinema), why I tried so hard to please some people when that wasn't giving me any satisfaction.

Amy validates your pain and anger, the violence Nick uses is the everyday kind of violence most women suffer, the "normal stuff" and she's like "no, this deserves punishment"... It does, not to be framed for murder but that violence should be punished not applauded by our society.

we deserve more complex multi-faceted female characters after we have rooted for & maybe even empathized w their male counterparts. you're so right abt female rage too!! they always expect us to deal with it gracefully, silently & in the dark :/

"finding catharsis without empowering it" is exactly how I feel about Midsommar's ending as well when Dani smiles as her emotionally absent, gaslighting boyfriend is sacrificed by the cult. Please do a video essay on that movie too!

This is exactly why I recently ended a 12 year relationship. I felt like I was turning into someone I'm not, and I felt horrified and disgusted because of it. I really needed this video, thank you very much. I was able to cry what I couldn't before.

you expressed exactly why i rooted for her - women having to put on a mask, suppress anger, frustration etc and just smile and take it when men disrespect them and destroy them from the inside, that emotional and psychological abuse hurts women too her actions are an extreme of taking back control in a patriarchal society of course that in real life she should dump him and find a man who she is more compatible with but a revenge fantasy is satisfying to watch

I think I actually understood her character more when I watched the movie a second time (when I was going through a shitty break up, cheated on, etc etc). And the cool girl monologue stuck to me ever since then.

she would have been a PERFECT SPY.

the real victim in this story is the child

amy dunne is the most compelling female character i have ever seen on screen. she is hypnotic and so cathartic to watch

I loved Amy and this film! There are so many lazy husbands who expect to be mothered by their wives and women trying to gently talk them into adulthood when their sadness, frustration, and exhaustion is killing them. All the while, the women have to play the role of happy wife, devoted mother and any small effort he puts in is widely praised but any small mistakes she makes, stain her as failure. I can image wanting to destroy your husband sometimes, but discretely so you can keep up the appearances.

Too many people are forgetting Amy is a psychopath with or without Nick. That's what makes her great. He didn't drive her to it, he was just the biggest push.

She isn't Tyler Durden. Tyler represents chaos, when she represents control. Of all cinematic villains she 's most similar to is Hannibal Lecter.

i love how this is a METAPHOR that no one understood. it still shocks me at how many college graduates exist in america and yet people _still_ seem to take everything at face value rather than actually think about things and try to understand maybe what something might MEAN.

for me, gone girl's story was like a revenge-fantasy. i liked the story as fiction, but there's no way to root for amy dunne in real life. the story of both nick and amy wrestles with the gender roles they feel defined by and the ending is regressive as it puts both people back in their respective "husband" and "wife" roles. it's the total opposite of a doll's house by tolstoy. amy dunne is not a feminist icon, anti-hero, or role model.

Amy is by far my favourite female villain, she's brilliant.

I read the book after seeing the movie, My favorite part of the book which was not in the movie was the end where nick and amy Lay on the couch and rubbing her stomach she summarizes all the things that he does for her since she has become pregnant. She sums up his devotion with he loving her, Nick tells her he doesn't love her but continues rubbing her stomach. And even at that moment, you could tell they Amy was ready to live that perfectly as long as Nick was, I don't really think she cared about being really loved but having Nick do what she perceived as love. It was basically a hostage situation, Nick can't leave her and Always has to be perfect.

I’ve always said, the portrayal of a relationship from totally glorious in the beginning... to slip in to desperate despair is the truest depiction I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Because Rosamund Pike is inextricably linked with Gone Girl, many don’t know that she has some serious range. Absolutely brilliant in A Private War.

She is absolutely terrifying and I love her for that, absolutely relatable. Both the book and the movie version.

I just love Rosamund's performance as Amy garnering the simmering anger beneath the surface depicted by her tone of voice, always repressed and low but firm

She truly deserved the Oscar 😭😭😭😭

I just realized Gone Girl is sorta a modern adaptation of the Greek tragedy Medea. A hero who has a woman at his side supported him no matter what, but the Jason/Nick disposed Medea/Amy for another woman which led the latter to commit great revenge on him. There were even Greek and Medieval writers who thought Medea is more in the right than Jason.

In the book, it was made clear that BOTH Amy and Nick were terrible, despicable people who throughly deserved each other. In the movie, Nick is made slightly more sympathetic, and you can understand why he continues to be married to a sociopath in order to protect his unborn child.

I was absolutely not rooting for Amy but holy shit was she a fucking genius

If I'm ever accused of murder, I want David Fincher to represent me....

I won't say I was rooting for her but I do empathise quite a bit...she is what I could never become but I have faced similar situations that end up pushing her towards that extreme.

It’s true though, he wanted her to be the trophy the perfect wife but never even wanted to know the real her. That’s not to say that she was a victim because she didn’t try to solve the problem and jumped straight to revenge.

People who cheat on their partners are seldom really punished. She went all the way and I love it. She was a victim and she made him the victim.

Nick reminds me a lot of my friends, I even had to act like their ideals of a perfect friend, that I had to step down to make them feel good about themselves. When I pointed out how I kept on doing all the hard work while they kept on manipulating me for their own gain, I was only put down and shamed for having feelings. I also want to see them punished and make them feel what I felt, and when I bring up this fact that they had hurt me, making me lash out, my school only tells me to not be vulgar (I am very vulgar when I’m pissed off), and that I shouldn’t have acted in that way, even though the signs very clearly pointed to me being hurt and manipulated by my old friends. So in a way, by watching Gone Girl, I am able to live through a revenge story that I’m unable to live out in my current situation. Sorry if this seemed draggy and I’m telling a grandfather’s story I wanted to give the whole picture.

The great irony of this film is that when I found out that Nick didn't kill his wife, I somehow despised him more. The way he took her for granted. The way he treats not only his wife but all those around him. He actually goes from being the guy who was wrongly accused of a crime to being a nasty person in his own right. Don't get me wrong. Amy is far, far, far worse. No question. Nick is many things, a murderer isn't one of them. That said, this film does a good job of making Amy at least empathetic. Amy like many other anti-heroes (Joe Goldberg and Walter White) deserves some kind of comeuppance for her actions. However, like the best cautionary tales, the bad guy actually wins.

Men’s responses to Amy Dunne are amazing. John Wick gets to go on a murder spree for a puppy, but women who sympathize with Amy Dunne are apparently latent psychopaths.

Amy is a villain. And I'm happy to get more complex female villains. Also just because you like her, does not mean she's technically a hero or redeemable. You can empathize, you can understand, but at the end of the day, she's still a villain. I wish people remembered that for all their favorite villains.

Ms Pike should have won an Oscar. This is excellent film about suppressed female rage that goes on in marriages everyday, and an excellent essay on gender, marriage, status, media and race in contemporary times - taken to an extreme for drama. That's storytelling. Not surprised about the black lash; most people ignorant about these issues. Again, excellent job from THE TAKE in breaking it down. Love, LOVE everything you do!!!!!!

I would really love it if women in media could simply be human more often. It's either "girly girl", "crazy girl", "cool girl", "the tomboy", "gold digger", "smart girl", "mean girl", "business women", "picke me girl", "strong girl", "house wife", or any box the writers decided to take a female character from. I think that's what we so love about seeing Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit on screen. She was just a complex human being. She was strong, yet vulnerable, cared for people but was lonely, never let other people (especially men) stop her from her goals and ambitions, yet wore feminine fashion. She doesn't fit a stereotype. Yes she's a drug addicted genius, but she is also much more than that. It's honestly really sad that characters are women first, human second in most cases.

Amy is definitely one of the most exciting characters in film in the past 20 years. I will never get tired rewatching this film! Rosamund Pike deserved an Oscar for this role🏆

I love Gillian Flynn so much. I hope she writes another book.

Almost married a man-child. I know what its like to hate man like Nick. 😂😂😂

Gillian Flynn is a fantastic writer. Love her or hate her, Amy is a fascinating character and I’m so happy she exists.

Amy is definite proof that you can perfectly embody the traits of your man's dream girl, and being the loving partner, but he'll STILL cheat on you anyway. 😔💔

Amy falsely accused someone of rape, that automatically negates anything positive you can say

What I took away from this video was the play-through of a women taking the masculine role of dictating exactly how her husband was supposed to be and how to conduct himself; the "horrific" idea of a women controlling a man. This is a role historically held by men; for a woman to assume this role feels wrong for our social expectations. We have socially accepted the idea of a man controlling and dictating women but not the other way around. Obviously, a healthy dynamic is where both people are honest and respectful of one another and respectful of each others boundaries.

Rosamund should’ve won some sort of award. Amy was scary but I rooted for her at the same time!!

People will enjoy the dark morality of characters like Patrick bateman, Tyler Durden, Hannibal lector, and Walter White but think Amy Dunne is the most evil person in history, irredeemable from understanding :0 but I think her actions are fascinating

I read something, somewhere, that the feminine and masculine romantic ideals are opposites and frequently in conflict. To summarize: The female romantic ideal appears in romcoms and is defined by a man who puts in a high level of effort. He makes grand romantic gestures, sacrifices, and actions with high personal cost. He does so publicly, and effort increases after marriage and time, rather than decreases. Men tend to not like the male leads of romantic comedies, viewing the movie antics like sausage being made: manipulations to reach a goal. The male romantic ideal is defined by a permanent payoff of effort in the form of a woman who displays a high degree of loyalty. She remains unchanging, understanding, generously sexual, and giving, regardless of his mood, appearance, worth, actions, and most importantly, fortunes. Always ready and willing, without any effort at all, the woman is easy and certain. Because she is an achieved certainty, the plot tends to gloss over her to focus on other actions in male-geared films. Women do not like the female romantic interests in male movies, viewing them as unrealistic, vacuous, sex dolls. So we see there is a direct conflict between the female desire for men to exert a lot of effort, and the male desire to stop all effort, which translates to real life with women continuing to have high expectations of putting in a lot of work on a relationship, and men expecting to coast on the bare minimum. With this in mind, Amy becomes the ultimate female revenge fantasy of every woman against every lazy boyfriend or husband. She calls out and punishes Nick for his lack of effort, and holds him accountable for his failure to meet and maintain her romantic ideal. Then she entraps Nick in a way where he will be forever forced to put in full effort. She is in such a position of power over him, that she reduces him to the sex doll role in the male ideal, whose sole purpose is to please her, while she now gets to coast. Amy attains both the female romantic ideal AND steals the male one.

Rosamund Pike's acting in this movie was worthy of SEVERAL Oscars! I was completely mesmerized by her performance the entire film.

"He became someone I did not agree to marry." That happens so often! Men are great partners as boyfriends, you fall in love, then you get married and they become lazy cheating assholes. I've heard many women say they wouldn't have married their husband if they knew what they would become.

i’d love to see a “BAD GIRL TROPE explained” - like maeve from sex education, effy from skins etc...

When I first read this book, I had not seen the movie first. I remember texting my boyfriend about how much I loved Amy and completely identified with her. He knew the twist, so he just kept saying, "Cool, keep reading." Low key... still kinda vibe with Amy.

This makes me want to watch this AGAIN. Its SUCH A GOOD MOVIE. I was lucky I actually read the book before I watched it too because the book is also done so well with the journal entries you read and you slowly start putting together all of what shes doing to him.

You should do a video about the Disney live action movies, on why they have/are so hated by both critic's and audiences. Why the outcome just doesn't have the same magic and entertainment as the original movies, and also why the so called 'more feminist' portrayals of the female protagonist's in these movies are actually EVEN MORE sexist than the original movies, by being more passive or more pandering in the advertisement's for these movies.

Me: *sees title* *immediately clicks*

Brilliant video as always, I love your channel and I am always sharing it with my friends!

but i think women sympathizing with her in a way says a lot how women feel in this society