AFFLECK. Topbills most cautionary and “emasculating” film of the season. photo: aceshowbiz.com
Just as “Fatal Attraction” scared and even traumatized some male viewers many years ago, 2014’s most cautionary and emasculating film of the season is David Fincher’s “Gone Girl.”
Ostensibly the case study of a “perfect” marriage gone horribly wrong, the film based on Gillian Flynn’s book actually limns the chilling portrait of a woman who, from her childhood onwards, was tragically trained to detach herself from reality and create a more “convenient” fiction when life dealt her a bad blow.
The first fiction was her manipulative parents’ decision to embellish her unremarkable childhood years with exciting adventures, and sell their hyped-up version of “Amazing Amy’s” thrilling life to dazzled young readers, by way of a series of topselling books.
As a result, Amy became a young celebrity, so when Ben Affleck’s character fell in love with her, she was regarded as a prize catch.
For the first two years of their marriage, they were truly, blissfully in love—until bad economic times resulted in financial issues that they were completely unprepared to handle. Instead, they ran away from their daunting problems—especially Amy, who had become a past master at “fictitious living.”
Ego-boosting affair
To make things worse, Affleck’s character launched into an ego-boosting affair with a student, which he thought Amy wasn’t aware of.
Given her controlling ways, however, that turned out to be a completely wrong assumption, and his duplicity, coupled with occasionally violent outbursts, soured their marriage for her, and she wanted out of it, pronto!
Unfortunately, instead of just laying her cards out on the table, she resorted to exceedingly clever subterfuge, creating an elaborate series of fictious “facts” intended to make Affleck look like a monster husband, and cast her in the pitiful role of his long-suffering victim.
When Amy’s concocted reality is switched on “for public consumption,” Affleck is caught with his pants down as Amy goes missing on their fifth anniversary—thus, the “Gone Girl” of the movie’s title.
What could have happened to her? Police investigators smell foul play, especially when blood is found in the couple’s home.
Affleck protests his innocence to high heavens, but the viewing public is decidedly against him, so he ends up hiring a famous criminal lawyer, played by Tyler Perry, who turns out to be as much an expert at craftily manipulating the public’s perception of events as Amy has become.
In the end, however, the shifting scenarios of guilt and innocence are made moot and academic by the missing wife’s reappearance, telling a tragic tale of being used and abused by another man!
Being the expert manipulator that she has become, she even succeeds in reviving their failed and fractured marriage, to such a brilliant extent that the completely swamped viewer—not to mention Affleck—no longer knows where reality ends and “convenient” fantasy begins!—Hence some male viewers empathetic fear that they too could be in the process of being brilliantly manipulated by their own “amazing” spouses!
Program update
SANTOS. Real challenges of long-term love—and marriage.
The wedding tilt, “I Do,” started out all love, sweetness and light only a few weeks ago, but has since quickly gotten down to brass tacks, pushing its nine engaged couples to face up to the sometimes harsh realities of “couplehood,” leading all the way to a hopefully happy wedding and marriage.
Some of the “colorful” initiatives that the tilt has come up with to keep viewers have been on the chintzy side, like the boyfriend who turns out to be an occasional cross-dresser! But, most of the show’s tests and challenges thus far have been necessary eye-openers, in the sense that they make the couples realize that they’ve taken too many things for granted.
Since the show wants all of their unions to succeed, they have sometimes bluntly and painfully been reminded of their respective obligations, like their need to consider financial factors that they’ve too giddily taken for granted.
The financial focus extends into this month’s shows, with trailers showing some couples breaking down, blaming one another, wanting to give up—etc.
-A stormy and very emotional time for most everyone, but we hope that, in the midst of all of the weepy and shouty recriminations, the couples and empathetic viewers will learn lessons that will make them realize the real challenges of long-term love—and marriage!