Thoughts on Gone Girl

Last night I saw the movie Gone Girl. I had read the book last year with my book club. Both the movie and book should be required reading for divorce lawyers and family law judges.

The story is intricate and twisted and both the book and movie are well done. Spoiler alert – you may want to stop reading now if you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet.

The story revolves around Amy Dunn who fakes her own death to frame her husband Nick in order to get back at him for having an affair. In the end she brutally kills a former (and creepy) ex-boyfriend she manipulated into helping her, framed him for rape then returned to her husband.

Until halfway through the book/movie, it seems the case is building that Nick did indeed kill Amy. Then midpoint we find out that Amy has been framing Nick all along.

More information on the book and film can be found on Wikipedia.

What I keep thinking about is not the main plot line but a back story about Tommy O'Hara, another of Amy's ex-boyfriends. When Tommy wanted to break up with Amy, she wrapped twine around her wrists to make it look like she had been tied up and then purposefully had sex with O'Hara. Afterward she went to the police and filed rape changes against him. The story highlighted Amy's need to control and manipulative tactics The poor guy's life was ruined. O'Hara had to state on any job application that he was a sex offender and whenever he moved had to report it to the police. He was completely innocent but that didn't matter – the accusation and evidence of sex was enough.

The reason I keep thinking of Tommy O'Hara is because tactics such as Amy used are not uncommon at all. Spring's actions were very similar. She attempted to ruin my life, and succeeded in doing so financially, through false accusations. She tried to frame me with the police and made false accusations, utterly false I'll add, of abuse. Nothing was proved of course and she later stated under oath that I had had never touched her but the damage was done.

Spring's  actions not only hurt me, the person who had given her everything, but her own children as well. And for what? For money and to satisfy her need for control and power. This make her actions far worse than Amy's treatment of Tommy O'Hara in Gone Girl. Sadly, what Spring did is all too common in divorce cases. The law says that Spring should pay retribution and be in jail for her actions. Instead the Court awarded her massive amounts of money and has required me to work until the day I die for her.