Do we like them?

Do we like Amy Dunne?

A character from Gone Girl (2012)

Our score: 2 out of 10. Brilliant, magnetic and a sharp critic of 'Cool Girl' culture. But she does real, calculated harm to innocent people, so we wouldn't back her.

Amy Elliott Dunne is a clever, polished New Yorker. Her parents turned her childhood into the 'Amazing Amy' book series, and she has lived in its shadow ever since. After she and her husband Nick move to his Missouri hometown, the marriage sours. Then she disappears on their fifth anniversary, and the police and the media start to suspect him.

The story is told through Nick's account and Amy's diary entries. It keeps asking how well we ever know another person, and how much of anyone's public self is a performance. Amy is the sharpest example. Her 'Cool Girl' monologue, about women shaping themselves to fit what men want, is the speech most often quoted from the book and film.

We score her low because she is a planner. She is intelligent and in control, but she uses that against people who haven't earned it. Some critics have called her a feminist antihero, and others reject that reading. Both views agree she is gripping, but they don't make her someone to back.

The diary is a fabrication. Amy staged her own disappearance to frame Nick for her murder and punish him for his affair. She is willing to hurt other innocent people to keep the plan on track. When it starts to unravel, she makes a different, even more ruthless move to get back in control, and she ends up back in the marriage on her terms.