Hell hath no fury...
...like a woman's revenge.
Gone Girl, is a movie where a guy comes home late one afternoon, to find his wife is gone. He thinks nothing of it, until he sees an overturned table, the glass top shattered, and a chair tipped over. Something, he thinks, bad has happened to his wife. But what? Worried, he calls the cops. And then the nightmare descends upon him. His life will never be the same.
The unwieldy scenario of cops and media is a playbook we’ve gotten used to. The cops do their job and find what they believe to be evidence of a murder site. It is the typical plot, of a husband with a missing wife and indications of violence, and of course, the husband is always the number one suspect. If the husband is clean, the suspicion list descends to boyfriends and old boyfriends. More often than not, a woman knows her attacker. She is, or has been, intimate with her killer.
It has been this way for thousands of years.
The evidence mounts up against the husband, Nick Dunne, with the coup de grace evidence being a garage full of stuff he claims to have never ordered. Once it all adds up, the financials, the found diary of his missing wife, Amy, and the mopped up blood on the floor of their kitchen, lit up by a spritz of luminal, Nick heads to New York to get an attorney that specializes in guys who are the suspects in their wives murders or disappearances. Tanner Bolt takes control of the situation, and then a one-on-one interview is set up, for Nick, with one of those ferocious interviewers.
The lead detective, Rhonda Boney, begins to read the “found” diary. Good for Detective Boney as her skepticism begins to build, that this case is not the usual stuff.
Cut to Amy and what has really happened. Weeks before the disappearance, Amy had seen Nick, outside the bar Amy bought him, kissing another woman, passionately. Amy, not being just any girl, dreams of murder. She meticulously lays out a plan for revenge like none other. A murder that she will not carry out, personally. The state of Missouri will act as her executioner.
It is a plan that calls for Amy to suffer through a great deal of physical pain as she plants evidence of herself. She is not afraid to carry out her program to its fullest, even going so far as to nearly kill herself by removing a quart of her own blood to leave the necessary evidence on the kitchen floor. She then “disappears” in an old car. She carries thousands in cash in a fanny pack so that she doesn’t have to use a credit card. She dyes her blond hair a dishrag brown. To top it off, she takes a hammer and hits herself so that she can say her man was a violent brute.
Amy glories in the fact that Missouri has the death penalty. Oh how she wants Nick dead. She watches the newscasts to see how he is doing as the number one suspect in her disappearance.
Amy is the psychopath’s dream girl. And her archetypes?
Medea, Hera, Providentia, and the Gargoyle.
Amy and Nick began their relationship on uneven ground. Nick was a journalist, whilst Amy, also writing, had a large trust fund to fall back on. When the recession hit, they lose their jobs in the Big Apple, and move to Missouri to care for Nick’s mother. Amy buys them a large house. Nick finds a job as a teacher in a college. Amy buys Nick a bar, which he runs with his twin sister, Margo. It is cozy until Nick finds that lusty wench, one of his students, to have sex with him. Like all guys fucking the younger woman, they are distracted at home.
Nick’s archetype is the befuddled professor who married the lord’s daughter. His official patron saint is Saint Brigid of Ireland. He needs St. Brigid to watch over him because Nick’s bad habit is the inability to see what is in front of him. Nick’s archetype is Jason, of Argonauts fame. Jason was the stupid prince that did his traitor uncle’s bidding in order to regain his father’s throne. Jason too, could not see in front of himself. The innocent fool really thought he would get the throne when he brought back the golden fleece.
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Like Jason, Nick will become well acquainted with Medea. Especially when he announces he is leaving her for that young thing, Glauke. So Nick has his Glauke, and then Medea/Amy spring into action, the difference being Medea just wants to kill Glauke to have Jason to herself. Amy, in the beginning wants Nick dead. That changes when the unexpected happens.
Amy takes up residence in a cheap cottage way out of town. Across the driveway lives a trailer trash, young couple that she befriends. This couple finds out Amy has all those thousands in her pouch. Amy understands the gig is up at the cottage. She begins to clean up, wiping everything down she has touched. That is when the trailer trash knock on the door, and then steal her thousands. This is a game changer, for stealing Amy’s money is stealing her magic. Amy now panics. Like Medea in Athens when Theseus shows up, she leaves. But Providentia is always with her. Amy excels at thinking on her feet. She changes her game plan, and finds someone useful to her. Who else, but an old boyfriend?
Desi Collings, the high school sweetheart she dropped years ago, still loves her. Desi is the fool. He is Kasim, Ali Baba’s brother, who gets so excited about the treasure, he forgets the password. Thus Desi, caught up in the excitement of having Amy to himself, forgets reality. His death begins when he has rough sex with Amy. In the midst of his excitement, he looks into the Gargoyle’s eyes. He doesn’t turn to rock. He gets the Kasim treatment. His throat is slit.
Don’t you just love Amy?
Amy is not the wild woman you love and then release back into the wilds. No. Amy is the high end of the science world. She knows how to study, research, plan, and read guys like a decoded book. That is what is truly scary about her. She is highly influenced by her Hera side. She knows how to play the victim as she works to destroy those who dare to cross her. After killing Desi, Amy shows up at the hospital ER. She claims it was Desi who kidnapped her from her home, and he raped her, constantly. She has the evidence, more self-inflicted wounds…
It is Detective Boney, whose archetype is Athena, that questions Amy’s story. Nick is skeptical as well. To keep up the good appearances, to keep his word, when he was interviewed, of only wanting his wife back, Amy returns home with Nick. Thus a new game begins. The cruel bitch that is Hera is in full force, living there, inside Amy. Nick will have to live with it as well.
Nick wants to leave Amy. But there is no leaving this Hera. Amy, now pregnant, will stop at nothing to protect her home. With her cool and calm precise thinking, and persuasive arguments, she ensnares Nick. The poor scholar is defenseless against her. His shadow side is no match for her complete darkness. The Furies encircle her, protect her. Nick is to play the fool to her evil queen.
There is a larger drama that is played out here. It is the metaphor for the modernist world, and its war against human beings, especially on the level of men, women, and biology. In addition, Gone Girl gives a good dose of truth on what many women are. The word you are looking for is vicious.