Movie

Gone Girl (2014)

Spoiler alert, though including Amy on my list already gave it away. A film best known for its plot twist, the reveal is unusual because it comes at the midpoint. Savvy viewers – especially those familiar with the unreliable narrator trick – will guess the twist before it happens, but what follows is unpredictable and gripping. The screenwriter Gillian Flynn wrote the novel on which the film is based, so we get the same two-part structure: a mystery for the first half and a suspense thriller for the second.

The story revolves around the disappearance of Amy Dunne, wife of Nick (Ben Affleck). On finding signs of a disturbance at his Missouri home, the concerned husband calls the cops. But when the evidence suggests a staged crime scene, he finds himself suspected of murder. His wife set up an anniversary treasure hunt, and following the clues leads to more incriminating finds.

Amy was the inspiration for the children’s book character “Amazing Amy”, so the case garners widespread media attention and puts Nick in the spotlight. He’s heavily in debt (though he doesn’t seem to know about this), which gives him a motive. With the police suspicious, Nick’s only ally is his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon).

As the story unfolds, Amy recites passages from her diary in flashbacks. These cover her first meeting with Nick, their marriage, and the happy early years. After Nick’s mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer and the couple moves away from New York, Amy’s story takes a dark turn. A victim of physical domestic abuse, she fears for her life. When the police discover the partially burned diary in a basement furnace, the case against Nick is even more compelling.

At a vigil for the missing Amy, her friend drops the bombshell that the missing woman is pregnant, and the media frenzy intensifies. The film is a commentary on television and celebrity obsession, with news reports appearing prominently throughout the story. Ultimately, we find out Amy is a scheming liar who staged her own murder to gain revenge on Nick for having an affair. That part is true, so Nick is no saint, even if he married a twisted psycho and a sizeable portion of what Amy wrote is pure fiction.

Villainess

Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike)

When Amy narrates her wicked scheme, and the clock rewinds to the day of her disappearance, it’s a five minute long mixture of confession and hatred. The villainess talks about her plan as if it’s commonplace to frame someone for murder and get them the death penalty. Amy discusses faking her pregnancy, leaving washed blood at the house to implicate her husband, and preparing to kill herself when it’s over. The whole setup could be described as a “how-to” book for budding psychopaths.

When Nick realises how dire the situation is, he hires high-profile defence attorney Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) and works with his sister to expose Amy. Nick visits other men in her life, including one guy she framed for rape and another who still loves her. His mistake will come back to haunt him soon enough. It seems setting people up is second nature to Amy, and nobody knows where she is.

By now, the villainess has changed her appearance and gone into hiding in a rural area. She has plenty of cash, but like all cocky killers, she makes a mistake and reveals her money bag to a couple of local drifters. The two criminals rob Amy, and she’s forced to amend her carefully planned scheme. Time to woo old lover Desi (Neil Patrick Harris) and convince him to be her partner.

The guy should have listened to Nick, because Amy frames him too. After the persecuted husband appeals to his wife on TV, she decides Desi is a liability. So, Amy fakes rope marks on her wrists and puts on a feigned horror show for the CCTV cameras. With the stage set, she seduces Desi and slits his throat with a box cutter. Sorry, pal – you’re just the latest sucker.

Things look bad for Nick when police discover the “murder” weapon and charge him with the crime. He’s barely out on bail when the blood-smeared Amy returns home and falls into his less than welcome arms. She recites a sob story about Desi kidnapping her and blames the cops for arresting her husband. The authorities are happy to believe her version of events, if only to close the case and put an end to media scrutiny. As for Nick, Tanner abandons him and leaves the couple to their own devices. It’s a fake marriage that breaks Margo’s heart, but the lawyer calls it right: Nick and Amy deserve each other.

Honourable Mention: Treacherous Wives

Shattered (1991) – Judith Merrick (Greta Scacchi)

Another film with a treacherous wife (spoiler alert!), this 1990s thriller mixes a standard amnesia plot with enough twists to keep the story original and compelling. Dan Merrick (Tom Berenger) wakes up after a car accident and lengthy coma, but can only remember general details and nothing personal. Following extensive plastic surgery to reconstruct his damaged face, he returns home to his loving wife Judith.

However, a mix of troubling flashbacks and information from his business partner, Jeb (Corbin Bernsen), leads Dan to suspect something is amiss. After he discovers Judith was having an affair with a man named Stanton, who hired private investigator Gus Klein (Bob Hoskins), it appears the car accident may have been attempted murder.

Things get even more mysterious when Dan and Gus observe Judith meet Stanton at a remote hotel, only to get shot at and nearly have a fatal road accident themselves. Then “Stanton” shows up at Dan’s house, and it’s revealed “he” is Judith in disguise. The villainess tells her husband that he’s a murderer. They hid Stanton’s body in a shipwreck, and she’s been covering for him ever since.

Someone fatally stabs Jeb’s wife, Jenny (who Dan was having an affair with) when she gets too close to the truth. Keeping up with this? The biggest twist comes when Dan examines the body – preserved in formaldehyde – and finds it’s actually… well, himself.

Dan is really Stanton, and Judith killed the real Merrick. The wife goes psycho, shoots Gus and takes Dan… er, Stanton on a car ride. Judith disappoints as a villainess since the first murder was self-defence, but she’s still a lunatic responsible for killing Jenny. The murderer gets all crazy and suicidal, and Stanton bails just before she drives over a cliff. Another car accident, only this time it’s Judith who goes up in flames.