Finally, a good "blockbuster" movie that suits my taste. This movie is not for the faint of heart, it has many dark components and the cinematography was very well done. After the 2.5H of watching this, me and my friends found ourselves talking about this movie for the rest of the way home. The storyline centers around the troubled marriage of Amy and Nick Dunn living an upper class and seemingly perfect life. One day, Amy disappears and Nick is accused of murdering his wife but it turns out she framed her husband for murder due to failed marriage and all the emotional distress he caused her.
This movie is set up in the first half and convince viewers that the husband is a psychopath, set out to kill his wife and divorce her for her finances. However, the second half reveals a much darker side to "Amy" whom goes under disguise after successfully setting up a "staged murder" crime scene. This includes everything from drawing her own blood to splatter on the kitchen floor, writing a 300 page diary and befriending the right people that would come to her defense. Everything is impeccable and ingenious. After she gets robbed of the money she carried for her "hideout" she turns to her ex lover of whom she later murders to go back to her husband.
This movie raised the question: are psychopaths made or do they exist inherently? Was Amy capable of going through all this if her marriage went well? It also reminded me of the truth that: we really don't know who anyone really is. People are like scripts, only revealing what they want to but everyone has underlying ulterior motives. It also reminded me of the saying that "true love was never there if it goes from love to hateful attack in a second." I think marriage is just a socially constructed concept, a term of expectation of which two people rely on each other because they are bounded by some kind of institutional paper. With all these high expectations attached to your "husband" or "wife", it is sure to end badly if they fail you in the end. It's strange seeing how happily married they were for 2 years and how Amy finds discrete, subconscious ways to make Nick hers for life.
Also, found this movie to be extremely sexist. It portrays woman as vulnerable, in which they are swept off their feet into marriage, overcompensate by giving their finances and trust to the men, get ignored by the men and than go insane. The movie reiterates the fact that women always blame themselves when the man betrays them. Amy didn't think she was the "cool" girl until she escaped after framing the murder and that's the reason she attributed to Nick's affair with a 20 year old student. The women diminishes her self-worth and begs for anything to save the marriage like having a kid. On the other hand, the man blames the women. If he takes her out to a nice dinner and spoils her only to face rejection, the women is the "bitch". I think this movie reminded of the fact that there are some things in this world only you can give yourself, if you can't get it from someone else it doesn't mean you have to "punish" them. People are insecure in nature and often go into relationships/marriages without getting to know the person or even themselves. Overall, I feel this was a brilliantly shot movie with many cultural meanings and implications behind it. Finally, a movie to make me think. I'd rate it 9/10 only because I had to sit almost 3 hours in the theatre.
