Author Gillian Flynn was referenced in the Netflix film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery when the characters participate in a murder mystery game night that she wrote in this fictional world. She is named dropped because she is one of the best-known modern writers of the thriller genre, with three of her novels having been adapted across film and television. But her most successful is the film adaptation of Gone Girl.
David Fincher directed the film adaptation of Gone Girl starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy Dunne, a seemingly perfect couple whose relationship problems become public news fodder when Amy suddenly goes missing. The thriller story is full of twists and turns as it comes to light that Amy faked her own murder to get revenge for Nick's cheating. The film is a faithful adaptation of the book, but it cuts out Amy's most sadistic act of revenge.
Who Is Gone Girl's Hilary Handy?
Not long after Amy goes missing, Nick discovers that his wife is framing him for her murder. At this point, he stops being concerned for her safety and becomes consumed by his own desperate situation. They live in Missouri, which is a state that supports the death penalty. So, if he can't prove definitively that he had nothing to do with her disappearance or find her still alive, it's the end for him. That leads Nick and his lawyer to do what they can to locate Amy to prove she faked her death. But Nick's other strategy is to find others in Amy's past whom she has enacted an elaborate revenge plot against to demonstrate a pattern of behavior. And in the book, Nick finds Hilary Handy.
Hilary and Amy went to high school together -- a boarding school where they became close friends. Amy's parents bring Hilary to Nick's attention when they think of her as a possible suspect in Amy's disappearance. They tell the story like Hilary was an unhinged obsessive personality who wasn't actually a friend but more of a stalker. She died her hair the same color as Amy's, called Amy's parents to claim that she would live with them as the new Amy and spent a lot of time around Amy. But Amy set Hilary up so that when she purposefully threw herself down a set of stairs, she could claim that Hilary had pushed her and would have a lot of evidence to support her claims.
How Hilary's Absence Changes the Gone Girl Movie Adaptation
The movie adaptation of Gone Girl does a great job of exploring Amy's pathological need to be challenged yet in charge. However, by losing the character of Hilary Handy, Amy's acts of violence and revenge are only demonstrated against the men in her life, which creates a sexual and strangely romantic undercurrent to her behavior. Hilary's story shows that it's not just a romantic or sexual impulse but that Amy's actions also impact her platonic relationships. Hilary explains the whole twisted relationship to Nick, which aligns with how Nick has come to see his wife. Amy was punishing Hilary for all the ways Amy felt let down by her friend, such as being more popular than her with boys or doing better on an assignment at school. But there's something more revealing in Amy's situation with Hilary than with any other.
Hilary explains that Amy is so obsessed with being perceived as perfect that she views anyone who gets to know the real her on a truly intimate level as a threat. Amy goes to such extremes with Hilary because they are friends who know and understand that they are both flawed. Amy is scared of this and threatened by this kind of intimacy, which leads to her revenge plot that drives a young girl out of school and into trouble with the law. So, Hilary's story brings a new depth to Amy's character that isn't as well-developed in the movie.