Continental Garbage: Gone Girl

Summary

Podcast Summary: Sentimental Garbage – "Continental Garbage: Gone Girl"

Episode Information

• Title: Continental Garbage: Gone Girl
• Release Date: September 5, 2024
• Hosts: Caroline O'Donoghue and Jen Caney

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1. Introduction to Continental Garbage

The episode begins with Jen Caney differentiating "Continental Garbage" from "Sentimental Garbage," describing it as a blend between a postcard series and a film club. Listeners are given the option to either start from the beginning or skip directly to the film discussion via episode notes.

Jen Caney:

"[00:29] ...we are about to be Gone Girl."

2. Evolution of the Podcast

Initially intended as a four-week project focusing solely on European train travel films, "Continental Garbage" has expanded over nearly four months into a broader cultural exploration. The hosts reflect on how the podcast has grown beyond its original scope.

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[01:43] ...strictly films about travel and ideally films about traveling on trains and in Europe."

3. Choosing "Gone Girl" as the Final Film

As the series approaches its conclusion, Caroline and Jen deliberate on selecting "Gone Girl" as their final film. They seek a film with a darker tone to balance their recent discussions on sweeter, more sentimental movies.

Jen Caney:

"[03:11] ...we need something, like, bitter. We need, like, darker."

4. Personal Reflections on Relationships and Social Dynamics

The conversation shifts to personal growth over the summer. Jen discusses her evolving approach to friendships, emphasizing deeper connections over a broad network. Caroline shares her introspective journey, focusing on personal projects like writing her novel and improving her social hosting skills.

Jen Caney:

"[08:31] ...intense focus on the people I really deeply care about."

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[13:34] ...finishing the book that I am writing because I have a new literary agent who wants to represent me."

5. In-depth Analysis of "Gone Girl"

The bulk of the episode is dedicated to a comprehensive discussion of "Gone Girl." The hosts delve into the film's intricate portrayal of marriage, societal roles, and the psychological complexities of the main characters.

• Casting and Character Analysis:
  • Rosamund Pike as Amy Dunne is lauded for her portrayal of a multifaceted sociopath.
  • Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne is critiqued for his character's depth and the casting's effectiveness in conveying his troubled persona.

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[28:00] ...she's absolutely unhinged." [00:00:28]

Jen Caney:

"[33:30] ...Amy Dunne is a sociopath... there's scheming." [00:33:30]

• Themes Explored:
  • The breakdown of the social contract in relationships.
  • The impact of societal expectations on personal identity.
  • The manipulation and control dynamics between Amy and Nick.

Jen Caney:

"[34:21] ...he loves himself too much to do that." [00:34:21]

6. Impact on Current Social Movements

Caroline and Jen connect the themes of "Gone Girl" to contemporary movements like #MeToo, discussing how the film prefigures and relates to ongoing conversations about gender roles, trust, and manipulation in relationships.

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[64:43] ...people are able to say, this has happened and for it to not just be like, don't be a silly girl." [01:04:43]

7. Future Plans for the Hosts

Looking ahead, Caroline plans to focus on writing her novel and engaging more deeply with her social media presence. Jen intends to intermittently produce podcast episodes, host more effectively, and pursue personal goals like joining a climbing wall.

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[14:17] Yes." [00:14:17]

Jen Caney:

"[94:18] I also want to join a climbing wall." [01:34:18]

8. Conclusion and Farewell

As the episode wraps up, the hosts express their enthusiasm for the final discussions and upcoming live finale in Lisbon. They encourage listeners to follow their social media for updates and tease future projects.

Jen Caney:

"[91:27] ...you can expect a continual." [01:31:27]

Caroline O'Donoghue:

"[90:43] It's a wonderful team. Bit of team effort here." [01:30:43]

---

Notable Quotes

• Jen Caney ([06:06] – 07:27):

  "Summer is like some kind of thing that happens between two people... like summer is unlike any other season. They feel like real eras for growth and change in the way that other seasons don't."

• Caroline O'Donoghue ([18:17] – 20:25):

  "I just think this is a very important summer... and I just feel like I've sort of... intense focus on the people."

• Discussion on Sociopathy in "Gone Girl" ([44:17] – 45:31):

  "They're just gonna outsmart them. They're gonna outfox them and they're gonna use the resources available to them."

Key Insights and Conclusions

• Podcast Evolution: "Continental Garbage" has significantly expanded from its initial concept, reflecting the hosts' adaptability and growth in digital content creation.

• "Gone Girl" Analysis: The film serves as a potent exploration of marital decay, societal expectations, and psychological manipulation, resonating deeply with current social discourse.

• Personal Growth: Both hosts share their journeys toward deeper, more meaningful relationships and personal projects, emphasizing the importance of self-focus and selective socializing.

• Social Commentary: The discussion highlights the complexities of gender dynamics, the portrayal of sociopathy in media, and the evolution of societal movements like #MeToo.

• Future Directions: Caroline aims to embark on novel writing and enhance her online presence, while Jen focuses on improving her hosting skills and engaging in personal fitness activities.

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Follow the Hosts:

• Caroline O'Donoghue:

  • Instagram: Ounifer
  • Literature Account: Sentimental Garbage Literature

• Jen Caney:

  • Instagram and other social media updates shared intermittently.

Join Caroline and Jen as they conclude their "Continental Garbage" series with a thorough examination of "Gone Girl," offering listeners a blend of film critique, personal anecdotes, and cultural analysis.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Hello there. This is just a reminder that Continental Garbage is ever so slightly different to sentimental garbage in that it's sort of part postcard and part film club. So if you want to sit down and read the postcard, you can start listening from now. But if you'd prefer to just skip to the film discussion, you can look at the timestamp in the episode notes and skip straight to there. Okay, enjoy. Hello and welcome to Contental Garbage, the podcast where we are about to be Gone Girl. Hello, girl. My name is Caroline and I just killed Neil Patrick Harris with a box cutter. Joining me is the cool girl monologue that you hear in your head. It's Jen Caney.

[A]

Hi.

[B]

We're gone girl.

[A]

We're nearly gone girl.

[B]

I'm very proud of this choice.

[A]

I mean, when you suggested it, I was like, it's bold. It's different.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's coming in from an angle.

[B]

It's thematically fitting.

[A]

It kind of is. Like, I feel like we've really. And then when we started out, this Continental Garbage adventure, which was meant to be a mere four weeks of our lives, I recall.

[B]

Do you recall a mini season, a short project, a little four week. I believe this is the 15th episode.

[A]

No, it's more.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think it's like episode 17. So we've been nearly four months now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But when we started out, we were like strictly. Strictly films about travel and ideally films about traveling on trains and in Europe. And in Europe. And as we've gone, we've just. We've just, you know, we've felt our way through.

[B]

We've meandered.

[A]

The country of Continental garbage has expanded.

[B]

Yeah, it really has.

[A]

Its borders have really. Yeah, it's been quite a march, but this is completely right. I believe that in myself.

[B]

It's funny because I put out a thing on Instagram of being like, we're recording our penultimate Continental Garbage. We're coming to the end of the summer. It is now September. Next week, for those who don't know, we are going to be recording a live finale in Salted Books in Lisbon, which will be very fun. But this will be our last like, dedicated movie chat. So, like, what's gonna be the last movie? And then I. Everyone who suggested stuff, they were all good suggestions, but in my bones, I was just like, no, quite right. Because I think. I think what it was is that there was a lot of things, like Letters to Juliet and. But all good stuff, but, like, they were too similar to things that we've been covering the last few weeks. Like, we've been covering some very sugary things lately. With Sister of the Traveling Pants. And in Paris, I was like, no, we need something, like, bitter. We need, like, darker. Some umami, you know, it felt like I was starting to get a hold in my teeth from too much sweet, girly salt. Some real salt. And I think the sort of, obviously, you know, Gone Girl, she's in a car and she goes across the country. She goes to the Ozarks.

[A]

You know, she goes on a holiday.

[B]

She goes on a holiday.

[A]

And that is enough for me to make it continental.

[B]

Appropriate. Yeah. And, like, it was kind of in my head anyway, because the film turns 10 this month. That's nuts. Nuts. And it's. It's weird because. Yeah. So Grazia asked me to write about it, and so then it was put back in my mind. And I also realized that it's a movie and a book that's very obsessed with anniversaries. And I. This was the first movie that me and Gavin saw in the cinema together.

[A]

I can't believe that that's the powerful, bold choice.

[B]

And we just had our first wedding anniversary. Sorry, it's more relevant for me and Gavin rather than me and you. But I'm hoping you're very much the third in our marriage.

[A]

I think there's relevance here. And at this point, like, Gavin, whenever he comes home from work and peeks around the door and is like, oh, God, she's here again. The number of times he's been like, hi. Hi.

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Oh, Jen. Is she ever not in my house?

[B]

No. We're the three best pals. Four best pals.

[A]

When Silva's there with Silva's there. To be fair, we are three best pals. And I have obviously known you both for the same amount of time, so it's just that I haven't gone into railing with Gavin.

[B]

No. But he is coming to Lisbon with us.

[A]

He is coming to Lisbon. It's going to be so nice. We're going to be the three best pals anyone ever had. And Sylvie's staying home. Thank God she's not going to do the heavy breathing. So Gone Girl I'm very excited to watch this film.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think I actually have seen. Seen it pretty much since it came out, so.

[B]

Yeah. Right. And like, I, I, yeah, I sort of remember it. I remember mostly the box cutting scene. The scene where she takes a box cutter out and slits in the hospital.

[A]

Yes. It's a pretty memorable scene actually, that one. And I remember the book and reading the book and, and liking it, but also not, not like, love loving it, but I remember finding the film. I think I remember seeing the film and being like, the film. This book was made to be a film and it's a great film from memory.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I'm ready for us to experience it. But I think before we talk about Gone Girl, we should talk about what.

[B]

It means to be at the end of our continental garbage summer.

[A]

To be almost at the very end. Obviously, next week we will have definitely a postcard and hopefully a live recording. But it does depend on whether our mics hold up to the challenge.

[B]

To the challenge of a bookstore with the acoustics of a church.

[A]

With acoustics of a church and like 50 other people in there.

[B]

Yeah. So we'll see. We hope to have something for you.

[A]

We'll do our best.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, yeah. What a summer it's been. This has been the nicest summer project I've ever had.

[B]

Yeah. And as a result, my best summer ever.

[A]

It's been such a YA summer.

[B]

It really, like, if it was a novel, it would be a cover that has, like, these sort of scuffed Converse trainers in grass with a daisy chain next to it. That's how it's really felt.

[A]

It really has. It's been like, there's been so many POWs. There've been highs, there've been lows. There have been, for me, three separate festivals.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Well done on that one.

[A]

Thanks. I know. I just got back from one just now.

[B]

Do you feel like you have any, like, takeaway lessons from the summer, things you're gonna take with you going forward? Oh, my.

[A]

That's a big question.

[B]

Sorry. That's a big question. I realized that as the host of this podcast, I have the luxury of knowing what I'm gonna ask on the train over, and therefore I answer my own questions for me and then never run them by you. What? What? What?

[A]

What? I mean, I feel like I've learned a lot about being a 10 in the head, a 10 in the heart, a 10 in the world.

[B]

Do you feel like, where do you feel number is wise at the moment?

[A]

I'm working on it. Maybe I'm a seven, you know, that's.

[B]

A climb up from last week.

[A]

That's good.

[B]

She's improving steadily. Check her chart.

[A]

We're improving steadily. Her stats are good. I don't know what that means. I watched too much Grey's Anatomy and I have no idea. I've learned that it is really good to take a month off work and go into railing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's like one of the highlights of my life.

[B]

It is crazy to think that that's what this is, what this whole thing started with. And that was May. And like I do feel like. I don't know. I think that's what summers are for. Like I remember my friend Sarah Griff wrote this thing once about how like a summer is not a period of time. It's like a. Like a thing that happens between two people. It's like a. Like summer is unlike any other season. They feel like real eras for growth and change in the way that other seasons don't. To me, I don't know. Yeah.

[A]

You never get a YA book about the winter I turn pretty. It's just not a book. It's not that.

[B]

It's not a. What is. What do you think that's about?

[A]

I think there's just some kind of like vestigial memory of summer holidays at school where you just are allowed to not be doing your job. Which when you're a kid is school.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For a period of time. And also the days are really long if you live in the northern hemisphere.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And like there's a sense that there's endless time that where things can be and people are just in the mood to do things and to slightly be outside of their comfort zones in a new way.

[A]

And you don't have to wear many clothes which I know seems weird.

[B]

It's psychically important.

[A]

It's psychically important that you haven't would be like, and there's my coat and there's my jumper and there's my scarf and when I get cold you're just like, no, fuck it. I'm walking out the house and I'll see where the day will take me. You're not having to prepare in the same way that you used to.

[B]

It's footloose, it's fancy free.

[A]

But I wouldn't say every summer has been like this for me. I've had some real boring ass summers.

[B]

I've had summers that have felt like the mulch of just the year being kicked around into a new shape a little bit.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Whereas like maybe it's the.

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

Maybe it's the fact of documenting this summer that has made the summer feel important.

[A]

I think this is a very important summer.

[B]

I've.

[A]

Yeah, documenting it probably helps, but also, I just think there's been a lot going on for both of us. Yeah, you took sentimental garbage on tour, and it was amazing.

[B]

It was really nice.

[A]

It was so good.

[B]

I would say I was thinking about it because I was really, like, putting the summer together and, like, seeing if I could, like, group it together in any kind of a theme or anything like that. And obviously, there's the stuff that we've been talking about all along, but it's like, I realized that actually, like, this is a bit schmalzie, I suppose, but, like, you know, I just feel like I know who the people are who are gonna take me forward in the next part of my life or something. Do you know what I mean? It feels very people y orientated. And I used to be a person, and I'm still this person in many ways. I like making new friends all the time. I truly believe that if you want to have a healthy aquarium, you have to keep inviting new species in.

[A]

Oh, you simply must.

[B]

Biodiversity has to happen. Meeting new people. Love going after dinner with a new chick all the time. Great. But, like, I feel like this summer, for me, has been very about, like, people I've known for a long time, but getting to know them in almost a new way. Like, so you and I, like, know each other forever, but, like, we have this whole new kind of catalog of experiences, whole new depth. Like. Yeah, it's like I'm finding, like, extra.

[A]

Rooms in the house.

[B]

Extra rooms. New. Extra floors in the house.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I had that same thing with Alex when her and I went on the road together to promote the tour. I had a thing with Dolly. Me and Dolly wrote a script together this summer. And I just, like. I think for a long time, my life was all about the collection of new people and, I guess, sort of insecurity. And I think it comes from a slightly immigrant insecurity of, like, my life can be measured in how many people I know and being sort of good with all of them and, like, wanting to be thought of, well, in everybody's head all the time, which is obviously impossible for anyone. And now I just feel like I've sort of. There's been shedding is too strong a word. But I feel like what's more is, like, intense focus on the people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Who I really deeply care about. And, like, I'm like, this is. You're. You're a forever person, actually, you know.

[A]

Yeah. It's about. Years and years ago, I made a New Year's resolution, which was extraordinary. People only because I know. Because I also love people. I love people very much, and I love talking to people, but I also get very tired, and I'm a socialized introvert. And I had a moment, it was probably my 20s, where I was like, I have just. There are just too many things in my diary, and I don't get the time I want with only my favorite people. And I just had this moment of like, oh, no, I'm just gonna focus in on those. Not in like a. As you say, not in a shedding way.

[B]

More of a focus.

[A]

Way more of being like, oh, well, if I have a busy week, I can. It's okay to take time for myself. First of all, it's okay to also not be constantly available to everybody. I think your kind of immigrant paranoia is the same as the military brat paranoia of, like, you'll be moved at any moment, and you must make friends everywhere and you must keep them all. You must maintain them. And I think having that kind of mindset of, who am I? Yeah. Who are my people who are coming with me into the future and who I love the most and who I'm gonna kind of spend my time focusing on. Yeah, it is good, but it's also good to be being like, and here are some new interesting people I've met. I've made some new friends this summer, and it's been lovely. Just feel like new people have come in, and I'm like, what a precious gem.

[B]

Come with a precious. Also, what's happening for the first time in my life, and also. And you're part of this as well, is that, like, I used to be the person who, like, had a lot of fractured friendships. Not fractured is the wrong word, but as in, like, a lot of disparate friendships. That was, like. It was a me and them connection only kind of thing. And it would be like, oh, I would. You know. And this also comes from being at a time in life when you have more time and more evenings to spare, when work is less intense, et cetera. And so you have a lot, like, you know, you have three dinners a week with each with a different person, and each are a blast or whatever. But then when you stop getting less time for that, what's happening now, very joyfully, is, like, for the first time, friend groups are starting to coagulate. Like, it's really not. And I used to be, like, very insecure about, like, I guess, you know, that splintering of selves, you know, of being like, I'm a certain person with my friend Jen. I'm a certain person with Dolly. I'm a certain person with Ella or whatever. And, like, I used to kind of be afraid that I wouldn't be able to manage all the split selves. And now I guess I'm feeling more comfortable in who I am.

[A]

This is such a great YA novel for you.

[B]

Feels like a lot of information to be sharing, but it's truly what I've been thinking about, you know.

[A]

That's really wonderful. I love that.

[B]

Thanks.

[A]

I love this for you.

[B]

Yeah. Like, yeah, but, like, you know, do you feel that way in any way or have you ever had insecurity? You've actually always been very good at being like, I'm having a party at my house. Everyone come over.

[A]

I've always quite liked to, like, blend the pot and be like, what's the outcome? Sometimes great. Sometimes people are like, I hate that person. I'm like, well, yeah, I don't. So sounds like a new problem.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No, I think, yeah. For me, the summer has been probably more like introspective personal growth. You know, it's been more about, like, where am I going to focus my time? What does my future look like? It certainly doesn't look like I have a relationship right now, but I have other things that I want to focus on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's really cool.

[B]

Such as?

[A]

Such as finishing the book that I am writing because I have a new literary agent who wants to represent me and hopefully make a book happen. And obviously I do have a book that lives in the world, which is about tarot reading, but that's my one tarot book for now. Fiction. Now I write story.

[B]

Time to be a novelist, girly.

[A]

Time to be a novelist, girlie. Maybe. Who knows?

[B]

Oh, my God, we're like, Freaky Fridaying. I'm learning to be more at you socially and you're learning to be a novelist.

[A]

And it's all going to be fun.

[B]

It's a Fun new adventure.

[A]

Q4 of this year is going to be all about different things for both of us.

[B]

So. Okay. So Q4 for you is gonna be all about pursuing this novel.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Anything else you wanna keep in mind? Anything like fashion or stylistically or like, obviously the yogurt curls have been a big hit.

[A]

They were surprisingly a hit.

[B]

They were a huge hit.

[A]

Maybe I'll be doing more. I mean, I haven't everyone look at.

[B]

The sentimental garbage Instagram and go to the Post advertising the Lisbon show and scroll to the right and you'll see Jen's yogurt curds.

[A]

When yogurt girls were quite insane.

[B]

Yeah. She made from Sunset screen that we had a yogurt base. Just so you know, it was an.

[A]

Accident, but happy one.

[B]

TikTok girlies have made fortunes off of last.

[A]

Right. I just, I don't know if the brand that I did this with would recommend that it. That that's what you should do with their product for spf. But anyway, so perhaps I will. Yeah, perhaps I'll curl my hair with yogurt more often or like at yogurt based spf.

[B]

Anyway, like, do you have an aesthetic vision in your head of what autumn, winter 24, 25 is going to look like?

[A]

So the thing is that, like, I. If you ever see a picture of me, you'll see I do look like a sort of tragic Victorian orphan.

[B]

Isn't very 10 in the orphan of you.

[A]

Okay. Like a really heart tragic Victorian orphan. But, you know, like, the sun is my mortal enemy. My hair does not enjoy humidity. So autumn is very much the season where I feel I look my best. So it's not like I'm like changing up a lot there. I think I'm just gonna be like, fantastic. Coats again.

[B]

Coats again.

[A]

I think you said to me the other day you were like, you look Irish. You look like you should be wearing a lot of wool. And come October, I just do. I just wear wool constantly for six months.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I'm like, stylistically, for me, you.

[B]

Should be wearing wool, spinning wool and selling wool.

[A]

And maybe I should. Although I did because I was at a festival this weekend, which is my kind of traditional end of the summer festival.

[B]

End of the road.

[A]

End of the road. I think they call it that because it does feel like the end of summer. And it does. Like both in my heart and also just in the world. And as we have talked about, I think on the substack, I like to make packing lists for things and then I like to assess my packing list after I've done a trip. Is it sad? Yeah. Is it the reason I can pack really light also? Yes. And I was like, because normally my festival attire is sequins and I was looking at all the end of the road girlies. And I was. And I did write a note to myself, like, maybe next year you're gonna do long flowing block print dresses. Maybe you're gonna go pre Raphaelite next summer. Who knows?

[B]

Oh, I could really see that.

[A]

I could see that. Like a little waistcoat maybe as well. Is it too close to my aesthetic or is it good enough? I'm just gonna consider it for next summer, for summer 2025, because I think, like, I like a sequin, but maybe that's not for me. Next year, what do we think about.

[B]

The waistcoat coming back?

[A]

I'm a huge fan, so that's thing I always thought. No, because. Because again, I mean, my aesthetic is Victorian Orphan Hobbit, and Hobbits do love a waistcoat, but maybe we just lean into that.

[B]

Yes. So this comes from our friend Ella Risberger's theory in that, like, what's the best way to describe it?

[A]

Everyone has an aesthetic that's not like the specifics of their look, but, like the thing that they conjure. And you must be careful never to dress too on point with that aesthetic because then it becomes. It flips into irony. So in her case, I think she says she can't wear. What was it she can't wear? Was it velvet? Because then she looks like a tiny.

[B]

A doll.

[A]

A doll, yeah.

[B]

Because she already has these kind of Victorian. She looks like an Edwardian, like, bride anyway. So if she wears velvet, she looks like a doll.

[A]

Yes. So she's like, I can't wear velvet. And I. I have always worried that mine is probably, you know, I mean, not that I'm likely to start cape with a leaf brooch on it, but Hobbit is definitely where I can trend.

[B]

For me, like, Rockabilly Bride is a really dangerous, like, cherry print halter. Anything with a cherry print. Yes, I think is a no for me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think if you're kind of like tall and busty, that's like the shapes and patterns that were, like, nudged towards you in a kind of a certain era. And you must resist.

[A]

You must resist unless you like it.

[B]

But I don't.

[A]

I don't think you would look bad. You would look lovely. It's just that people will be like, oh, you've. You've gone too far into your own.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Aesthetic. But we must. We must simply experiment and we must then try and find out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What we can do. So stylistically, what about you for the autumn, winter, anything you're going to be taking forward?

[B]

I'm. What I'm really hoping is I'm extending the current vibe of, you know, focus on people that I really care about or whatever, while also maintaining a healthy aquarium of new breeds. Yes. And working on hosting.

[A]

Hosting.

[B]

So you've Actually really helped me with this.

[A]

I can't wait for you to host.

[B]

Because do you know what? Because I've always been the most insecure host.

[A]

You don't like to host?

[B]

I think so. But now I do like to host. Maybe I do like to host.

[A]

I think you should.

[B]

Because I think my previous history with hosting has always been like, someone comes over and I'm so jittery that they're like, you know, not hungry. They're hungry or they're thirsty or whatever that I kind of. What I do is I give them too much starchy food as the minute they get in the door. And then they're just quite like tired and overstuffed. And then suddenly out of nowhere, it's 9 o'clock and I sort of run out of activities for us to do and I get really jumpy and I just like, oh. Or whatever. And I just, I can't quite relax into it. I over rely on Gav for conversation because all I can think about is whether they're either too hungry or too full. And. And I also, I have like many insecurities about my cooking or whatever and all that. But then you started coming over to.

[A]

The podcast all the time.

[B]

All the time. And I just got more used to like cooking for a friend and realizing I actually love cooking for a friend.

[A]

You have a little bit of wine, you make a big salad or you make a delicious bean based thing. We eat it, we just hang out.

[B]

I've just gotten like much better at it and I'm not constantly afraid of whether the food is bad or whatever.

[A]

It's always good.

[B]

Thank you. And I just want to be more. Yesterday I had a brand new friend over and it was like a warm night and I took loads of candles out and we had wine in the garden and we had a dish that had many colors in it and I was just like, wow, I did it.

[A]

You did it.

[B]

And I didn't apologize for the food once. I just did it and we had a really nice time.

[A]

Caroline, this is wonderful.

[B]

And I want to keep doing that autumn winter. Do you know what? And you know why? Else?

[A]

What?

[B]

Because I am still on strike when it comes to restaurants.

[A]

Are you?

[B]

I am.

[A]

I didn't realize you were on strike with restaurants.

[B]

I've, yeah, mostly been on strike. I just got like.

[A]

Actually, I suppose I did know that because we did travel for a month together and mostly not in restaurants.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's just. I just can't do it anymore, man. I can't do it.

[A]

Yeah. They are. They're a lot.

[B]

I can't accidentally spend £140 on over salted, tiny food. Like, I can't do it anymore. Me and my friend Katherine have this thing called supermodel dinners where we just got stung so many times in a row by shit restaurants where we were overpaid and both felt left being like, I'm glad I saw you, but I feel shitty about the amount of money we spent where we have dinner and then we go out to a really nice restaurant and we order a really expensive bottle of wine and start us and we call it our supermodel dinner. As if we haven't had dinner at home.

[A]

It's actually genius.

[B]

It's really good.

[A]

See, I. Obviously I'm lucky that I have my dear friend Becky, my social architect.

[B]

Yes. Who has the queen of hostessing.

[A]

She actually. You don't think you've ever even been to one of her parties?

[B]

No. No.

[A]

You simply must.

[B]

I seem to always be at something. Always.

[A]

You are a busy lady. But she is the queen of hostessing. But she also is very good at knowing which restaurants are not shit. And so I simply ask her what I must do at all times.

[B]

Oh, that's good.

[A]

And I just look at her Instagram and take notes.

[B]

I just. I just think people have lost sight of what good food is.

[A]

I would agree with you, but there are some good foods out there. There are good foods I went to. I don't know. I'm not gonna bore the. The parish with the specific places I've been to, but I've been to good places recently. And it's almost always Becky's fault.

[B]

Becky's fault.

[A]

I blame it on Becky that I've been like, God, I had a nice tea in it, lovely tea, lovely, delicious dinner and some wine. God, how could she do that to me?

[B]

Okay, I will hear Becky for the nice pictures. Okay.

[A]

You've hit her up. She will know things. God. I think we've got. We've got a lovely kind of 2024 ahead of us. Hopefully.

[B]

Anything else? Want to paint my fucking house?

[A]

I'll help you paint your house. I did dip my toe back into the romance based app games.

[B]

Did you?

[A]

Well, no. So, as in, I was like, I wonder what, how bad it is out there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I downloaded Hinge, which I've previously been on, and the only way I can describe the experience of downloading and just like clicking through Hinge was. Are you familiar with the wonderful film the Lion King?

[B]

Of course.

[A]

I know you are. Do you know the bit where Simba comes back from spending what appears to be several years in a. In a forest, coming to maturity, eating bugs with his best friends, a warthog and a meerkat. And he comes back to the Pride Lands, which were once beautiful and full of verdant deliciousness. And now they are barren. The herds have moved on.

[B]

The herds have moved and there is.

[A]

Only dust and grayness.

[B]

Oh, no. And the hyenas. I was like, oh, my God.

[A]

That's how I found it.

[B]

Sarabi.

[A]

I literally was like, oh, you have such a nice time here. This was such a beautiful, beautiful ground for me. Not anymore.

[B]

And obviously, Zazu in a prison made of a rib cage.

[A]

Prison made of a rib cage. And this is very.

[B]

That is so good. Go on, tell me about some of the hyenas that you saw on there.

[A]

I'm not going to be mean about the hyenas I saw in there.

[B]

It's just. It's just like they're a victim of something, too.

[A]

The thing is, it's hard to be a 10 in the head, a 10 in the heart, a 10 in the world when the only people pressing, like a 2 in their mid-50s. Do you know what I mean? And you're like, just like, oh, no. Oh, no. I also quite enjoy that. This does make, in this extended metaphor, my previous relationship. Yeah. Just three guys in a wood eating bugs together, singing Hakuna Matata. It's not wrong.

[B]

I guess that's not wrong.

[A]

Had a lovely time. But, yeah, so I don't quite know. So I looked at that and I was like, maybe not dating this autumn. Maybe we'll wait. Maybe I'll just skip just straight to Cats.

[B]

I don't think so.

[A]

No. Okay. But I'm not playing in the. In the depleted pride dance anymore.

[B]

I think that's smart.

[A]

I think that's not for me. I think the main issue there, and we all know it, is that for reasons known only to them, men will simply set the age ranges for people they will date on the apps 12 years lower than they actually are.

[B]

You know what?

[A]

And I'm fine with them doing that, but I'm not participating in it. I'm not participating in that narrative.

[B]

You gotta boycott that stuff.

[A]

I can't be asked about that. Like, if people my own age won't date me, I'm like, oh, you will find me in the streets and you will date me there.

[B]

You will find me in the streets. And you. Yeah, you and I had a conversation about this last week. Yes, we did. And I asked Gavin about it and I was like, what do you think? What do you think is the deal with men setting their age range 12 years lower than them? Do you think there's any excuse or irrationality or whatever? He just looked at me, he was like, it's toxic. It's a red flag and they should be ignored.

[A]

I was like, oh, okay, yes, that is true. But that is, yes, if you're in your late 30s. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who would say this.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that is. It's such fucked behavior.

[A]

It is bad behavior, but it's also very common and I'm not participating in it. Goodbye to the apps.

[B]

Goodbye to the apps. But also not just goodbye to the apps because of that, but also goodbye to the apps because, like, I think somebody else said this. But it's like in every normal relationship, like for example, your previous one, right? Yes. Somebody who you knew a long time who, like, gradually, like, you know, you knew a lot about, you had connections to. And there were many stages that existed between stranger and lover.

[A]

Yes. None of them took place in a.

[B]

Weird little tiny nether space. Right. And like, and so there's so many different stages that you go through. Like to call from co workers to acquaintances, to like, you know, a friend of mine or whatever. And you get a weird, a 360 view that is distant, but in a way whole of a person. But like with the app Slow Burn, it's nice, the Slow burn or whatever, which doesn't mean you have to know everybody that you've ever, you know, go out with for 15 years or whatever. But like the. What happens when you are on an app? Date. App based date, a romance based app game is like you meet someone, someone's a stranger, and then you meet them for the first time and you're immediately dating.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That's weird.

[A]

It is weird, isn't it?

[B]

You're immediately dating by virtue of meeting them at the all bar one. You're now dating.

[A]

You've now been on D with that.

[B]

Person and it's this weird, like, oh, this weird hermetically sealed vacuum. It's like it takes away all the naturalism from the growth of a relationship. Like it used to be that like people would go on dating apps because they had run out of people in their real life to go out with. But now it's like the reverse.

[A]

It's like now it's like, it's weird.

[B]

People go to real life because they run out of people on the dating apps. Like that's fucked.

[A]

Apparently, running clubs are the big thing now. I think I will not be doing a person who cannot run and just goes incredibly red.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But like, yeah, people are. Now we're seeing. The pendulum is swinging back.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the opposite direction. And. Great. Great. Because.

[B]

Yeah, great.

[A]

Great. So Q4 for me mostly gonna be writing books and hanging out with my great friends.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not gonna be faffing around on Hinge or Bumble or whatever the fucking nonsense. There is. There is now. I don't know. I'm sure there's 10 more.

[B]

Isn't it so weird how, percentage wise, there are so many more men on those apps than women are, and yet women are the ones who have the terrible experiences.

[A]

Are there more men on them?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I did not know that.

[B]

Yeah. I think it's like a three to one ratio or something.

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I know it doesn't feel that way. I know it does not feel that way.

[B]

It's fucked.

[A]

Oh, my God. Yeah, I think that's actually. I think this is a relevant postcard for Gone Girl, a film that, if I remember rightly, is not. Not positive about relationships and dating.

[B]

It's not positive about it. It's male critical.

[A]

It is male critical. I think it's also. I think it's female critical too, right?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Great.

[B]

It's. Yeah, you're right. It's really critical.

[A]

It's really like relationships. Are they good, though?

[B]

Are they good, though, worth it, though? I don't know.

[A]

I think a great one for us to be talking about are two people in very different spaces on the relationship spectrum.

[B]

Yeah. Let's go for it.

[A]

Let's go for it.

[B]

Well, that movie fucking rocks.

[A]

I love it. I think I love it so much more now than I even did when it first came out because it was so ahead of its time.

[B]

So ahead of its time. And so was the book in so many different ways. Like, if we think about the book which came out in 2012.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this movie which came out in 2014. So, like, she immediately stopped writing it and then started writing the screenplay, which was made so well by David Fincher.

[A]

So. Well.

[B]

So well. It, like, it premeditated so many things in terms of. This is a pre Me too movement. It is pre Me too post kind of online feminism. Jezebel. Sort of like the kind of renaissance of feminism among millennial women and older, obviously, but you're still early, like, and also pre true crime, sort of before.

[A]

The boom and true crime.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I guess I feel like maybe Just as you said that, like, I'm probably at the elder end. The elder end of being a millennial.

[B]

Right.

[A]

At 37.

[B]

Was that. Was that elder?

[A]

Yeah, I don't think. I think there's, like, a few more years above me, but it's not a lot.

[B]

I don't think I would call 44 to 45. They said that would just be the cut off before you become Gen X, I would think.

[A]

Yeah. But I think sort of getting to your early 40s, you're probably there. But. Yeah, for a lot of our generation, this film came out when we. When marriage was like, a thing old people did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you know what I mean? That's. Maybe that's what the difference is. That it probably spoke a lot of people who were in their 30s at the time it came out 10 years ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But for me, a person who was in her 20s, I was like, I don't know. Seems legit.

[B]

Yeah. No, I loved it.

[A]

I guess that's what marriage is.

[B]

Guess what? Totally. I guess that's what marriage is. And I also think that, like, we had so little to relate to in terms of, like. Because really what Gone Girl is is that it's taking very honest, very raw feelings that happen in very many marriages and spins them out into the operatic level. And that's what the best anything is. Like, something that is just true enough that they just pushed over the edge into absolute crazy town, which is what makes it such a fucking good story. But, yeah, I couldn't relate to any of that. But I was also just of an age where I was beginning to understand and no one had spoke to me yet about the whole cool girl thing, about the roles that women play for men and men play for women or whatever. And so I remember that as being a real. Like, it blew my fucking. When I was a kid at the.

[A]

Time that this came out, probably either too deep in or very close to having been doing that.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Like, it was a bit like when we talked about when we watched the. The before trilogy and how you always have to have enough distance from these films to be able to be like, it's not, like, uncomfortable to see it. Whereas I think when the cool girl monologue first came out, I was like, what's wrong with liking burgers and giving blowjobs?

[B]

I like blowjobs. I think it's cool and different, but. And it is cool and different, but the.

[A]

No one does that.

[B]

But I think what's so interesting is that, like. And I like. Because I also sort of sped Read the novel this weekend. And, like, not because I had to speed read it more. Because speed reading is the only way you can read Gone Girl. Because it is so addictive. It is just, like. It's so yummy. It's so good. But it really struck me when I was reading the novel. I think this holds up in the movie as well. Of, like, yes. The cool girl monologue, which is. I mean, everybody knows it. It's that. Where Amy Dunne is driving down the highway in her getaway car. And it's, like, become clear. This is the first moment where you realize. As the audience and as the reader. That she is absolutely unhinged. She's unhinged. She's killed herself. I think the first line is, I'm so happy now that I'm dead.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So good. And she, you know, she said, oh, you know, for a while, I was game. I could do it. I was a cool girl. That's the ultimate compliment, isn't it? The cool girl. That's the whole thing of, like, cool girl, like, watches Adam Sandler movies. And drinks beer and da, da, da, da. And then it goes on to say, like. And the thing is that they think this girl actually exists. But it was made up and put into movies and then watched by girls who thought that they had to be this. And then the cool girl had to become the de facto girl. And that became the new, almost standard of femininity. With this sort of, like, complex hybrid of girl and man. And about how limiting that is. And that's, like, really interesting and true for many women. But it's also what kind of often gets missed. In the discussion of the cool girl, I think, is that Amy. The thing with Amy and Nick. Is that Amy's also writing roles for Nick. It's all about the roles men and women play and vamp for each other, I think.

[A]

And, you know, I think there's a kind of. Because I think the first time when I watched it, I think I probably was a bit, like. Probably more sympathetic to Nick's character.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Probably hard to put myself back in those shoes. I was like, the bit crackers. Now much more sympathetic to Amy's character. Because I think what she gets so furious about. What she is, like, tearing her hair out about. Is the breakdown of the social contract. And to her mind, the social contract is. I will pretend to be the person that you want me to be. And you'll pretend to be the person that I want you to be.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we will both do that thing. And what she's Kind of really skewering is the fact that, again, like, this is. This is not. This is sort of anecdotal and observational from the world in general. It is quite often in a marriage. The man who stops pretending first. Pretending first. And being like, this is the real me.

[B]

Such a good way of putting it.

[A]

Here I am.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And nope.

[B]

Oh, so good. Suck it up. And I think, what's so good? Because, like, Amy Dunne is a sociopath. Like, she does not feel empathy. And I think she talks about the many roles she has lived through in her life. Like, being preppy girl and this girl and that girl. And amazing Amy, who's the sort of the child prodigy her parents wrote about or whatever. And for her life is nothing but an adoption of roles. And when you take those roles away, There is only scheming. There's no true character. There's just scheming.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it's, you know, that's what makes it the idea that you could be, you know, your quote, unquote, true self to her. There is no true self.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

There is only a person who's not trying completely.

[A]

But I think. And I think Nick, Although it's less clearly spelled out. Is also strongly implied to be the same. That they are both people who kind of have a bit of a void at their center. And who are only mask. And she's like, well, listen, they're both the same.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Fucking keep the right one on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, keep this on for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And over and over again, in the kind of the flashbacks to their early relationship. It's like, I found the scenes of their first dates, like, excruciating. And I think they're meant to be excruciating.

[B]

Well, what's interesting is. Please go on in a second. But, like, do you believe. Because all those first dates that we see. Are, in fact, Amy's diary. And are accentuated, heightened. And, like, obviously in the book. Are meant to be found by the reader and taken as true. And then we find out that she's a doctor in some of these diary entries.

[A]

But I think what she does. Because I think they cover this in the film. Is the early part of the diary is all true.

[B]

Yeah. And she does say that. She's like, those are true anyway.

[A]

Because that makes it easier. And then. Because that also obviously incriminates him. Because when they really miss the diary, he's like, yeah, of course that's true. Of course that's true. And then suddenly, he has to switch. He can't have a kind of Consistent. No, she lied the whole time. She's done a base of truth and then she's put the lies on top of that because she's very smart. She's a very smart girl.

[B]

So satisfying to.

[A]

So satisfying. But I think they are true, and I think they are excruciating because I think they are two people who don't have kind of core authentic selves. Like two birds of paradise flapping their wings at one another and doing odd shapes and both getting caught up in it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is kind of dating for everyone in some ways. But. But there isn't then a revelation of, like. And this is the real me. They both are kind of left floundering because they haven't really got much of a self beneath them.

[B]

Yeah. Because there is the understanding of, like, you date someone and there's magic in pixie dust. First of all, because that's what our hormones do to us anyway.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

But second of all, because you're showing off, you're trying. You're going interesting places.

[A]

You're like.

[B]

Yeah. You're puffing up your feathers. Yeah. Do that noise again. Wow. I can't do that.

[A]

There we go. Just a skill I have.

[B]

But, like, even as people in their 30s, we understand that, like, there will be a moment and the glamour will pass and what we hope, what we will be left with is something sort of true. Honest, pleasant and good.

[A]

Less showy, but still well turned, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And solid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And this is a story of two people again, as you say. It takes a common experience and amplifies it to the nth degree. And it's like, what if it was all for show? And what if it then breaks down? And what if you then absolutely go psychotic in the most literal sense?

[B]

Oh, it's so good.

[A]

So good.

[B]

Everything about it is good.

[A]

I think, just watching. I mean. Well, we were watching it together, and obviously it's been your first wedding anniversary recently, and you were like, an interesting film to watch.

[B]

Anniversaries. It was. Yeah.

[A]

And how. I mean, it's all set around their anniversary on July 5th.

[B]

Yes. Yes. And this whole thing of, like, every year on their wedding anniversary, Amy designs a treasure hunt, which is a test.

[A]

Of how well Nick knows her.

[B]

Yes. And it's all in very horrible rhyme. And, like, it's very. Like, he's just like. Yeah. Like, this is like, every year I fail this test, and every year she hates me. And, like. And yet it persists or whatever. And then this is obviously the year where she decides to go missing.

[A]

Great. Because. Yeah, because I think it isn't implied that in the first couple of years it gets it right. And then they buy the same bed sheets together because their sex is so good that regular cotton just isn't enough. Again, I want to cringe myself inside out.

[B]

It's bad, isn't it?

[A]

It's gross. And then by year five, which I think they're on year five when this happens, he just has lost all interest in her.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I feel like that's very. I don't know, I think that must be a very uncomfortable watch for some people. It might sound it a little bit. Just that thing of being like, oh, this person used to be absolutely obsessed with me and love me. And now they're like, must we?

[B]

Must we?

[A]

Yeah, must I? Must we? I'd like to point out that I've never been quite in that situation, but, you know, you can. You can. You can tell when things moving in that direction.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I can just imagine if I were in an unhappy marriage right now, watching this film would be.

[B]

Oh, I tell you what, man, this Gone Girl, if you're, you know, if you're reading the book and if you're, you know, thinking about watching a movie.

[A]

Or whatever strongly with either the characters.

[B]

I tell you what, it turns you.

[A]

Into a little bitch.

[B]

If you're not having a bad marriage, it makes you have one. Like, literally, I was. I was reading it all weekend and, like, we had a. We were out. Went out quite hard on Friday night, and so we had a really cozy day on Saturday. I sent Gav out to get some food and I said if he got the food, I would cook it. And I gave him a very specific list of things. Then he came back and he was like, oh, I thought. I didn't want that. It was too acidic. So I wanted something a bit cheesier. So I got this instead. And I felt like Amy Dunn. I was like, I'm gonna frame you for my murder, you piece of shit. And I was like a fucking cat who'd had water thrown on it. And I was like, do you really feel that strongly about this, or have you just been reading too much Gone Girl today?

[A]

Did he say that to you or did you say it to yourself?

[B]

No, I had to, like, take myself outside and give myself a talking down and eat some crisps.

[A]

Okay. Gone Girl, Is there, like, you need.

[B]

To, like, ration out Gone Girl if you're gonna reread the book? Let's.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, I'd approach with caution. Like you're on your fifth wedding anniversary.

[B]

But it really goes to show what a strong point of view. The combination of Gillian Flynn's. Sorry, Gillian Flynn. Gillian Flynn's prose and David Fincher's direction. It's such a strong point of view in terms of just dialogue, sort of how scenes are put together, everything. It's really hard not to get in your head.

[A]

It really does. I think watching that film, we got to the end of it, and I was just like, yeah, maybe I should just never have a relationship again. They seem awful. They seem so bad.

[B]

And. Yeah.

[A]

And I've never had a relationship as bad as a Gone Girl relationship, and I've had quite a few now. I was like, well, like, this feels so true that that simply must be the case.

[B]

And also that thing of, like, by the end, part of me does believe that they're gonna make it.

[A]

Oh, totally. They're gonna make it.

[B]

They're gonna make it. They're gonna. Yeah. I've been having interesting conversations this week about Gone Girl, about whether people think that by the end, Nick and Amy make it or not. Because, like, my friend Tash, for example, was like, yeah. I think that they sort of. Through this weird cat and mouse power play game, they actually become even more in love with each other and more diabolical. And it's like this thing. And then another friend said, he's gonna kill himself in 10 years. What are you talking about?

[A]

No, he loves himself too much to do that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think he make. I think they make it. There's that. Obviously, we're going. We're not approaching this film in chronological order. It doesn't need to be, because it's a classic. But there's a bit right at the end where. Which is actually the only. And the first time you see Nick enact violence against Amy. And it be real, not. She's fictionized, where he slams her back against a wall and calls her a cunt.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And she says something like. She talked about the fact that actually she might be a cunt, but he loves it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She says, the only time you liked yourself is when you were trying to be something this cunt might like. And it was the truest thing. And that's why they're gonna stay together forever. That sentence is why they're made for one another. She knows it. He doesn't know it yet, but they will.

[B]

Oh, it's so good. Okay, why is. Because there are lots of movies about psychos out there, and many of them David Fincher has made. And Most of them I don't like. I don't like seven. I don't like Girl with Dragon Tattoo. Mainly because these are people who are psychos in vacuums. Right. They are like, I never liked Girl with a Dragon Tattoo because I never. I don't like it when there are female revenge narratives. And those revenge narratives include these women having superhuman strength. Because I'm just like. It's not relatable. It's not available. It's not interesting. It feels like a masculinization. Even if. Even if the problem is feminine. For example, domestic abuse or sexual assault or whatever. They masculinize it by giving her a gun or whatever. But, like, it's the way that Amy Dunne uses the resources available to women to fuck her husband.

[A]

Totally. I think you're completely right. I think with, like, psychopathy and sociopathy. People automatically skip to very extreme versions of what is actually quite a common. I don't know what you call it. Condition or common way of being. There is a book out called Sociopath. About a woman who is a sociopath.

[B]

Yeah, I'm interested in reading that.

[A]

I've heard great things about it. And she's not. She's not a. Like, a criminal. Criminally minded, social. She's just like, oh, no. I just don't feel feelings like you do. And I think too often it's like. And they've got to be really like. It's got to be really gory and really like. And really, like, physical.

[B]

And there is gore in this.

[A]

Yeah. But there's one scene.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, maybe two if you can't. The bit where she, like, frames her own death. But the thing about it is that it's not about someone who has a lust for gore and horror.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's about someone who just has a lust for justice. Has a lust for justice. And believes that their version of the world is the way the world should be. Yeah. Really have room to understand that other people might have different opinions, feelings, needs, desires. And just will use everything at their fingertips to achieve that. And in the case of Amy Dunne, she's not physically strong. We see that in the film. When, in fact, she is fucked over people who are stronger than her. But she is very, very, very clever. And she's very ingenious. And you should never leave her alone with string or boxes or wine bottles, anything. Like, the only way that you could stop Amy Dunn from Amy Dunning. Is in one of those, like, padded cells.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, she. She's extraordinary, and it feels real. Because that is probably A much better understanding of what a sociopath who wants to fuck someone over would do. They're not going to suddenly become, you know, gun toting assassins.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

They're just going to outsmart them.

[B]

They're going to outfox them and they're going to use the resources available to them.

[A]

And what a set of resources.

[B]

And what a set of resources. And what I find so fascinating is like, you and I were screaming watching this. We were having such a good time. And like, I remember when I saw in the cinema when it first came out, being surprised how kind of campy and noir y it was. And I do think all good noir needs to be camp as well, because you get lots of people who are trying to. Like, there was one movie with Amy Adams that came out recently, I can't remember what it was called. Or like Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal. Movies that are trying to do that modern noir thing. They take this 1930s, 1940s classic genre and update it for the modern thing. And they always forget the campness.

[A]

It has to be there.

[B]

It has to be there because if you're going to make work that's so pitch dark, if it's tonally dark the whole way through, no one can see through the muddle. So you need to have these moments of like divine brightness, like Neil Patrick Harris saying, octopus and Scrabble. Octopus and Scrabble. But like, the campus is so perfectly judged. It feels like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford could be doing these lines. And you and I were having a fucking whale of a time. Like having so much fun, but also on the edge of our seats. And also, this is incredible filmmaking.

[A]

We've seen this film before, we know what happens. And we were still just like, oh, yeah. When Amy's mum says, findamazingamy.com Something about that delivery, I don't know what it is, but it just pushed me over the edge. She's just perfect. Just like, so she's a fame whore. Amy's mom wants nothing more than to be famous. It's sad that Amazing Amy, the children's picture book series that she has written, has not been doing so well. And she sees this, her daughter's disappearance appearance, as obviously sad, but also, crucially, a chance to resurrect her writing career. Yeah, and it's so like, it's not said. Doesn't have to be said. You know it, you feel it. Because that performance is.

[B]

It's so Chef's kiss. Every single person in this fucking movie is the exact correct person.

[A]

No one's been cast wrongly.

[B]

Even the really surprising people like Neil Patrick Harris. Like who? Like, I'm sure when Gillian Finn was writing that role, would never have imagined.

[A]

No.

[B]

But is so perfect.

[A]

He just. He has exactly the right level of like oiliness, but also suaveness.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you really think he seems like someone you could murder with a box cutter? I don't think he's not physically overpowering.

[B]

I imagine it's so strange that like, of all the kind of villains and anti heroes that are dotted throughout this piece, the person you really hate is the person who helps her.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So weird that you hate his cat. I mean, that whole section of the movie where she's like his little fuck doll living in weird mansion on the lake house or whatever. And there's this kind of coercive control, but it's not explicit. But it's just. Those are the most disturbing parts of the movie.

[A]

They are because he. But he. Again, and I don't know if he would call him a sociopath or just like a person who's a bit weird. He doesn't have like physical strength or like aggression, but he does have a huge amount of money, the ability to say things like, well, I don't want to force myself on you. And also, don't worry, there are cameras everywhere. You'd see anyone coming in or leaving. And she, at that point, she's like, oh, I can't leave.

[B]

Yeah, I cannot leave. Yeah.

[A]

Fuck palace with 8,000 count Egyptian cotton sheets or whatever.

[B]

Oh, it's so, so weird. It's so when he's the pudding and.

[A]

His little face is like, no, no.

[B]

That's what's brings you the hair dye and the clothes. Oh.

[A]

And he's just like, you are not as hot as you ought to be. And that is what I expect of you. But in such an insidious way, but.

[B]

Also just so funny. Like when he. When, when Nick goes to his door and he goes, you've been sending her letters. And he goes, me and Amy believe in the lost art of letter writing. He's just so good.

[A]

He is a tonic in this film. Him. Another one who I think gives us great levity and a little bit of a tonic is the defense attorney.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Remind me of his name. He's played by Taylor Perry and he's called Tyler Perry.

[B]

His name is Tanner Bolt.

[A]

Tanner Bolt, yes. And he is wonderful in this. The way that he's just like, yeah, this is fucked up.

[B]

This is.

[A]

Yeah, you can tell that is A man who loves his job, both the actor and the lawyer that he is playing.

[B]

It's so good, because I think as well, that lawyer comes in and he's, like, specifically supposed to be one of these sleazy lawyers who always, like, defends guilty people and men who have killed their wives. Men who have so obviously killed their wives. And he gets them off on technicalities. And there would be such. So it would be so easy to make him as really oily, gold ring kind of. I think originally he was, like, written for Alec Baldwin, and actually, that would have been over the top, I think.

[A]

Too much. Too much.

[B]

Everything is just judged so correctly. Lola Kirk as that girl in the Ozarks who betrays her. Who's Jemima Kirk's sister?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She's perfect.

[A]

Another one who I think. I think is perfectly cast is Em Rata. Em Rata.

[B]

Love to see Em Rata in a film. I think it's the only film she's been in, but she's perfect in it.

[A]

No one else could have played that.

[B]

But every time she was on screen, we screamed.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

We had such a visceral reaction to that young woman on our screens. It was so negative. Like, I remember going to a Prince Charles screaming of Sound of Music years ago, where every time the baroness came on screen, everyone hissed, and it felt like that we were, like, hissing. There's something that's so disturbingly childlike about.

[A]

Her little baby voice.

[B]

Yeah. Her huge tits and her tiny baby arms. It's like. And her tiny baby clothes. And it's like. It's like, oh, yeah. If this man.

[A]

Of course that's who. He cheated on his wife. Yeah, of course.

[B]

And it's. So the unique casting and writing of Lanka. Oh, no one's on your side. No one's on your side with this. That woman had no business in a bar.

[A]

No, that woman did not. No. And, yeah, perfect casting.

[B]

Yeah. I think what's so great about this is that, like, because it's such a wacky, strange, crazy plot, and you have to believe so much, every performance is a little to the left of a normal person. Like that thing of, like, obviously Ben Affleck of, like. And I think, again, it's one of these great things where the casting is doing storytelling work all by itself because we have so much, like, mental space around who Ben Affleck is to us in terms of, like. And it's even got. It's gotten even stronger in the 10 years since this film has been made.

[A]

In the last month, he's in the news again.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For the second J. Lo divorce.

[B]

For the second JLO divorce.

[A]

And I found it hard to almost remember that his character was Nick Dunn and not Ben Affleck. At one point, you turned to me and said, what if JLo gone girled herself?

[B]

She's capable of it, I think.

[A]

I don't know. If she is, we know where we'd find her.

[B]

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[A]

Yes.

[B]

Oh, no, you found me.

[A]

Oh, where could I be?

[B]

A place I haven't lived in 40 years yet won't shut up about. God lover. I kind of. I love it.

[A]

I respect it. It's not. Not an Amy Dunn energy.

[B]

Listen, there's a lot of famous women who have Amy Dunn energy because being famous is hard and takes a lot of thought.

[A]

It does.

[B]

And planning.

[A]

But I was there watching Nick Dunn and being like, this is simply Ben Affleck.

[B]

He.

[A]

He was offered his role and he was like, easy, yeah, I'll take it.

[B]

Like, I wouldn't have.

[A]

I would have to act. I'll simply just turn up and be myself.

[B]

But it's that perfect thing of, like, so much of how we think about Ben Affleck in the public space, and the public spectrum is sort of like, he's never having the right reactions to things. There's always pap shots of him just looking, like, kind of rumpled and freaked and, like, just sort of depressed and sad, and everyone's always like. And that really upsets people, I think. Actually, Anne Helen Peterson did a great podcast with us recently. I think it was just called, like, what's up with Ben Affleck? Or something. What is up with him and how, like, it really. He's got, like, sort of resting bitch face for. And it's very interesting when a man has that because it's a thing of, like, we. He's been famous for such a long time. He has everything a person could want. We. We want him to be able to enjoy it. Because if Ben Affleck isn't enjoying his.

[A]

Riches, then, like, who are we to enjoy Ours.

[B]

Yeah. And like, that's such a weird echo of, like, how no one like. No. In Nick Dunn's whole storyline, it's so much about how he's not portraying the right kind of bereaved husband.

[A]

You know, he's never doing anything quite right, is he?

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah. And, yeah.

[B]

But also, like the movie never. And neither both nor the movie ever does a good explanation. And I think this is very intentional of being like. Like, well, why isn't Nick upset? Yes, he was fighting with his wife. Yes, they were in a bad place. But, like, truly, he's not that shocked. He's not that, like, looking. He's not that frantic. He's just like, whoa. Weird.

[A]

I think we.

[B]

Is Nick also a sociopath?

[A]

Well, I do think. I think. Strong implication that there's something going on there with Nick. But you also do get. Which you don't always get, and it's in a natural way, a little introduction to Nick's entire family. So his mother died tragically.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

His dad is. Seems to have an advanced form of kind of dementia, which mostly involves leaving his nursing home and then swearing at everybody.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Which would really grind you down. And then he's got his twin sister, Margot.

[B]

Go.

[A]

Go. Who was also perfectly cast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Those square glasses, really, and the barrettes, they really put this film in a certain time and place. But also, I think one of her early lines in the film. I don't quite know how to interpret this in a kind of critical analysis way, but I think it says a lot about the relationship that Ben, that Nick has with his family is when they're talking about his anniversary and how it's the fifth year anniversary and the wood anniversary. Margot says to her brother, her brother, go home, slap her with your penis. There's some wood for you, bitch.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you just. With just that one, like, sentence and that one line, you're like, oh, this man is from a family of awful people.

[B]

Oh, come on. Do you think that's that? I know it's inappropriate, but, like, that's part of the thing of it. Right?

[A]

I don't. I think. I think the energy that Margot gives off. And so there is the. The kind of like, sensationalist entertainment news character played by blonde lady Missy Pyle. Missy Pyle, who at one point sort of implies an incestuous relationship between Nick and Go. And I was like, not. No, no. Has the energy if she wants to have sex with her brother.

[B]

Really?

[A]

I think she does.

[B]

I really think that.

[A]

I do think she does. I think she's in. I think that she is directed to have a little bit of an odd vibe with her. Yeah, it's an odd vibe. I think it's an odd vibe.

[B]

It is an odd vibe for a true.

[A]

You've got brothers, I've got brother. I would never say. Can you imagine those words coming out of your mouth to your brother?

[B]

No. But I can't imagine saying that to anybody, really.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

It's just not my cadence. It's not. I'm. We're demure, we're modest.

[A]

We're not demure, my boy. Yucky girls. We're very open about a lot of things. There's something off. There's something off about Nick's whole family. And you can't grow up in a family like that and then have, like a normal relationship with.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The most beautiful woman in the world, Rosamund Pike.

[B]

She's so beautiful.

[A]

Do you know I once nearly walked into Rosamund Pike. Yes. She was filming a film in the city where I went to university and I was, I don't know, walking somewhere hungover, as one does when I was a student, and I nearly walked into this woman and I was like, it's the most beautiful woman in the world. It's Rosamund Pike. She was just there. Wow.

[B]

Was she so beautiful.

[A]

Unfortunately, she is just as resplendent in person as she is. It's not lighting, it's simply her face.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She is perfect in this film. She's perfect in basically everything she's in.

[B]

But this particularly, I think there's also.

[A]

Something she's made to play this character.

[B]

She was perfect. I know so many people auditioned for this, but they were all just wrong. The thing as well, I think something is very important in that she's a British actress playing American and she's also playing a kind of. Of patrician New England American. Right. She's a New Yorker. But like, I think there's like, in the book anyways, a lot of like New Englandisms happening, but it's like very. She almost has that mid Atlantic accent and that kind of. She has this sort of strange voice as well. Deep voice. Yeah. And the kind of strange English remove in an American woman's body that adds to the idea of kind of sociopathy. That sort of just gives her an.

[A]

Aura, you know, I mean, famously, in almost any American film where the villain. Villain needs to be sociopathic. They are upper class English.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

So the perfect casting.

[B]

Perfect casting.

[A]

And that's true of Disney mills. Disney films also.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sarabi.

[B]

The herds have moved on and we were thinking about that all day. It's so good. The herds have moved on.

[A]

Yeah. I just think.

[B]

It'S a perfect film.

[A]

I don't know, I just don't think I appreciated it enough when it first came out.

[B]

I'm so ready.

[A]

I want to watch it again and.

[B]

Again now that it is 10 years old. I'm so ready for it to sort of live in itself now, if you know what I mean.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. Because so, so much content is being made all the time now that things get lost so quickly, it's hard to know what's really gonna stick around. Like, what's really gonna get a retrospective in 30 years time at the BFI. And I do think Gone Girl will be one of those.

[A]

It deserves it. It deserves it. Just that I just keep thinking of that scene, the scene where Amy gets engaged.

[B]

Where Amy gets engaged.

[A]

Where they get engaged. I mean, obviously.

[B]

Oh, yes. And they're at the book launch for another Amazing Amy book.

[A]

I don't understand. You know when like on Instagram and TikTok people take scenes from films and then they play them and you're like, why are not more scenes from this film? Yeah, like that scene where he does the pretend interview, which feels like Notting Hill but gross and creepy. That's what we discussed at the BFI in 20 years time.

[B]

Time, yes. Where she just sits down and proposes to her in front of journalists, including.

[A]

The phrase world class vagina.

[B]

What the world.

[A]

It's an immediate no from me. Someone proposes to me.

[B]

But you have the serious ick for Ben Affleck anyway, don't you?

[A]

I do.

[B]

I'm quite partial to Ben personally.

[A]

There's a moment, I think, at the vigil for Amy where there are two people in the crowd, two younger women, and one goes, he's so hot. And the other goes, no, he's so creepy. And that is basically you and I.

[B]

That was like our conversations thrives.

[A]

You think he's hot? I think he's creepy.

[B]

But it's a bit. It's a big part of like, again, the casting being so brilliant of like. It's said a lot in the movie, the whole thing about him having a villainous chin and how he covers his dimple whenever he's like, being honest about something because they have this running joke or whatever. It comes up in the book a lot about how, like Nick as being a sort of a victim of his own attractiveness, that people don't take him at his word because he looks like, like Somebody who would beat you up in school, you know, and like, it's such a perfect rendering of that onto poor old Ben Affleck.

[A]

I see. I think, I think for me I would have wanted someone different if I could, but I do think now with 10 years distance from it, yeah, I can't imagine a better person to play that, that role. But 10 years ago I probably was like, oh, I don't know, can I?

[B]

What I find so fascinating about this is how we found this to be such a rollicking good time and what felt like a very womany watch, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think like, if you want to get the gals around and watch it, you're gonna have a fucking hell of a time and crack up in the wine. Also, it feels like a great movie going into autumn to watch. It's a bit chilly as well. Yeah, great style. Really bit chilly. Like really nice. And I think it's a great girls night watch. But here's something I can't quite get my head around in that like in the. Obviously MeToo has happened. I mean, we could say has come and gone since, since this has happened. I feel like, I don't know, it's.

[A]

Not front page news anymore. But no, I think it's still, I think it's now woven into the fabric of day to day life more than it was.

[B]

I worry, man.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I really. Sometimes I think because like there are so many since that has happened in the last, you know, months and years where famous men have been revealed to be predators or whatever. And now it feels like our standard for horrific behavior has gone too high. Like finding out all things Jimmy Savile did, all the things Harvey Weinstein did or whatever, all the things Bill Cosby did, it's like those were so systemic and so almost rote and routine and horrifying. The way they would bully women and drug women and all these horrible, horrible, horrible things. Now I feel like when men are being maybe two tiers below that toxic, eg, the accusations against Chris Noth that appeared to disappear overnight, eg, the accusations against Neil Gaiman which appear to gain no attraction whatsoever, I sometimes feel like we have raised the stakes of what makes a monster so much that now when somebody is just a regular degular predator, people are like, yeah, we just fold that into the knowledge that we have about them. It's like, yeah, we just accept that Chris noth, he was Mr. Big and he's also probably a predator, but we're not really gonna look into it that much. You know. Am I being too cynical?

[A]

I don't know. Perhaps you. Perhaps you are. Perhaps you're not. The one thing I suppose I wonder is before me too, that wouldn't even have hit the news.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

You know what I mean? Like true. Muscle Band was flying under that radar for. In fact. Was he flying under the radar? No, but like, that was that kind of stuff. At least it's coming out. I think there's still. There is still a way to go for people to be held accountable and for that to actually have the proper impact that it should on people's careers, whether they are celebrities or whether they are, you know, sports scholarship college boys or whether they are just people who live in the world.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I do think there's more room now than there has been in the past.

[B]

You're right. You're right.

[A]

Professional environments, in social environments and cultural environments, for people to be able to say, this has happened and for it to not just be like, don't be a silly girl. It happens to everybody.

[B]

You're dead right. I think. Yeah, you're probably right. If, like we looked at the line graph of progress over the last 50.

[A]

Years, there's still more to go. We're not done.

[B]

More to go. But I feel like there was this huge surge forward. Me too. And then an immediate retreat back. But also the place we've retreated to is further along than the place where we were originally.

[A]

Like the tide coming in with the waves. You know, the wave goes up, the wave goes back a bit, then it keeps going higher and higher with each wave. Yeah, hopefully. That's a weird metaphor. But like.

[B]

No, I do. I do.

[A]

It can't always be completely constantly linear. It will. There will be bits where it sets back and maybe you're right. Maybe there is also an element of, given the wider horrors of the last few years, people being like, well, I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the things.

[B]

Yeah, no, I guess.

[A]

But I don't think the news would have come out at all in a Preview2world. I don't think Russell Brand would have come out in a preemie two world world.

[B]

I think. You think you've given me that perspective. Actually, I think I was getting very cynical there and I'm grateful for that.

[A]

Thank you. I mean, I could be wrong, but I think I'm right.

[B]

But during that initial couple of years after, me too. The, the, like, one of the most taboo and painful things would be, you know, the accusation that a woman is making stuff up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. And. And now, when people say that, it is immediate, like, it's a red flag from the person speaking to me, not the person who's made the accusations. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we're all so sensitive to if someone implies that a woman's making shit up for attention or for whatever when it comes to sexual assault and all that. And what Gone Girl does is like, grins at you in the face with Rosamund Pike's beautiful face and says, I'm making stuff up. I say, people rape me, who didn't rape me at all. I murder myself. Ha ha, ha, ha, ha ha. And I. I love it. And is it, Is it like just seeing the taboo writ large is cathartic or something?

[A]

I think there is something very cathartic about sort of taking some of your worst fears of not being believed, of not being taken seriously and going, but what, what, what if I did something with that?

[B]

What if I did just make it up?

[A]

What if I just make it up? There's something just quite. Yeah. It's very playful. I don't quite know why it's so cathartic, but it is. And maybe there's something in the fact that this is a film that is. That obviously is watched, enjoyed by women, but also by men, which kind of says, no, but look how insane it would be to do this. Look how much effort would go in to a woman making this up. And what I love about Amy.

[B]

Oh, you're so right. That's such a good point.

[A]

Like, I love how much of a terrier she is about this. And taking us back to the pony and the terrier metaphor, like the amount of planning that goes into framing her husband for murder.

[B]

Yeah. A year.

[A]

It's a year. She has her own summer project. It's her own contentful garbage and she murdered herself. But like, you look at that and you go, that is. That's insane.

[B]

It's so wild.

[A]

It's so sociopathic. It's wild. Most people do not have the time to.

[B]

Sitting on her bathroom floor bleeding herself casually while she reads the paper.

[A]

Do we actually think this is what women are doing? No.

[B]

Maybe that's it. The craziness of it actually does help women more because this is crazy. Yeah. You would have to be a fictional high functioning executive sociopath with like six degrees. Yeah.

[A]

And so much time. Because you haven't got a job.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And money.

[A]

And money. Because you have a huge trust fund.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That is. That is the requirement. If you've got all of those things, then maybe you've got time to Frame someone for rape or murder.

[B]

Yes. But anything below that, you probably have been raped or murdered.

[A]

You probably have actually had something bad happen to you, because who has the time and the energy for that?

[B]

Giles, you're full of them today. So much wisdom. I feel like I'm just, like, throwing them and you're knocking them out of the park. Great.

[A]

It's a wonderful team. Bit of team effort here.

[B]

It's wonderful.

[A]

I think that's what it is. I think there's something. There's something joyful and hilarious about watching her be like, and what if I did?

[B]

What if I didn't just make it up? What if I could stick a wine bottle up my pussy?

[A]

But as you're watching it, you're just going, no one does that. I mean, maybe there's one person who's done that in the history of the weather, but no one does that.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

The bit where she. When she's in Neil Patrick Harris's house and she clearly decides that she's going to start the fun business of framing him for race.

[B]

Yeah. And kidnap her. Yeah.

[A]

The bit where she, like, has the little ligatures around her wrist and then she goes and dramatically throws herself by the window, screaming. Screaming in front of the cameras. It's. It's so funny.

[B]

It's so good. Funny.

[A]

It's so good.

[B]

I love it so much. Why is it so good?

[A]

Why is it so good? Okay, so I have a thing, in some ways, a dark place.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Start movie. So someone else hanging out with the festival this weekend. We obviously, like, you know, you get. You get very merry and you get. And you're in the field in the middle of the night and you're just, like, chatting shit. And we were just talking. We were talking about men and how, like, sometimes they're just terrible. And I can't remember quite exactly how it came about in conversation, but there's that thing of, like, when you really love them, but also they're really awful sometimes. And it's like, I think this, my friend said, sometimes you just want to, like, murder them while they're inside you. You know.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

It wasn't it. And I was like, this is like a deep, kind of like a deep maybe female fantasy. There are two wolves inside you. One wolf wants to have sex with men and the other wants to murder them. And Amy Dunn just. She just lives it. She waits for him to come and then she sets his throat with the box. The control, the precision.

[B]

Precision.

[A]

I'd also like to point out that no one that I know is planning anyone's murder. But I think it's one of those, like, we know those late night chats where you're like, how can you, like, really love a thing and then also really hate things so much. How. How is that possible?

[B]

Does this movie make you think that perhaps more women are getting away with murder than. Yeah, actually, I think because women, not me and probably not you. A little bit more you than me. Like, girlies are precise. Girlies love a plan. Girlies love a checklist and no girly loves a plan and a checklist more than Amy Dunn. Do you think there are, you know, nobody. No crime from Taylor Swift? Do you think there are more female murderers out there than we think?

[A]

I think that they're probably. I think if you're looking at the numbers, I think it's still the case that very few people who are murderers are women.

[B]

Yes, yes. But are women murderers just not found out is what I'm saying.

[A]

If you were looking at the balance of who does the most murder. Murders. Absolutely. Men.

[B]

Men and their wives.

[A]

The balance of who is successfully caught for murders. Men. And that means as a proportion, not as an absolute number. I reckon more women get away with it. Yeah, I do think that.

[B]

I do think more women get away with it than. Than we know. And that's a nice fairy story. That's a nice bedtime story, isn't it? A fairy tale. Good night, baby. More women get away with murder than, you know.

[A]

Weirdly, in a lot of cases, I'd be like, yeah, probably legit.

[B]

Yeah. But there was this case, you know, I think her name was Lorena Bobbin or something like that. I hope I'm getting that right.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Where she cut off her husband's penis. Yes.

[A]

Threw it out the window.

[B]

Threw it out the window. And it was part of a string of cases. And please go to the youe wrongabout podcast if you want to know more about this, because it's covered extensively with part of a string of cases in the 80s, I believe, of women, abused women, women who've been abused killing their husbands. And there being a case for, you know, going very hard on these women because it didn't. We didn't. We don't want to provoke a nationwide or international streak of women killing their husbands. And nowhere, anywhere was there an effort to stop domestic, domestic abuse. It was like, we have to make an example of these women who've murdered their husbands rather than we need to stop domestic abuse, which I understand you should never murder anyone. Probably.

[A]

But, you know, but yeah, there is there. Yeah. I think there are beginning to be some. There's some recognition now in the justice system that sometimes when women murder their husband, it's because their husbands have been abusing them systematically for years and years and years, and it's the only way out. Yeah, there is a famous British case, isn't there? And I can't remember the name.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

We're not true. We're not true.

[B]

We're not true.

[A]

We're not true.

[B]

But that actually brings us to the next thing, which is true crime podcasts, which is that another way this movie predates the media movement, but it also predates the pre crime, the pre crime, the true crime fascination that has completely exploded in the last few years, which has completely passed me by. I just know what exactly.

[A]

No interest.

[B]

No interest at all.

[A]

None whatsoever. Can't be doing with it. Don't like crime. Don't like true crime. Don't want to hear about how it's done.

[B]

Don't want to think about it.

[A]

Creepy, creepy, creepy things.

[B]

I want to be. I want to hear about cons and swindles where people get like ripped off and stuff. I love that sort of shit. Grifts. I love a grift. Like, I love a mini podcast series about a grift or something. That's great for me, but I don't want to hear about a woman's body being dragged across a cornfield or whatever.

[A]

Like, no, I, I, I don't know. I don't really want to.

[B]

Doesn't sit with me. Don't like it.

[A]

Just, I feel like if it's what floats your boat, if the wolf inside you that wants to murder men is particularly powerful and like, you really want to feed it, like, by all means isn't the true crime podcast.

[B]

Yeah. And I do know that, like, there is, I do think. Yeah, I think, I mean, there is a rather easy explanation of being like, women are, you know, what they fear most, they want to confront. And I get that. But I also just think everyone likes being like a detective and that's part of it.

[A]

That's probably, I think, yeah, there's probably a lot more, but I do think there's probably something there in the, like, I think if there's something that really scares you, you either try and like nullify it by over learning about it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the way that when I used to work in a bookshop, the biggest buyers of like the kind of misery memoirs about child abuse would be like, young mothers.

[B]

Right. Yeah.

[A]

And I'D be like. Like creepy. But I remember one of my colleagues just being like, yeah, well, it's just like it's your worst fear at that point. And so why not read it so that the fear can be gone? And also you can feel like you're somehow in control.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I can certainly see why as a woman living in the world where you do just live with the threat of violence at all times, it just could just. It could just be there could just happen. There's nothing you can do to protect yourself. One way to approach that is to be like, okay, I'm going to read all about.

[B]

About it. Yeah.

[A]

But then equally, I'm of the opposite side of things. So when we were on our holiday, we each had some vetoes for conversations. And one of the vetoes that I gave you was when you were doing. You were like, did you hear that story about that woman who lives alone who just, like, died and then she wasn't found for months? And I was like, veto.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't.

[A]

I don't read about those stories. I shan't. I don't want to think about it. That's fine. But, like, I think you are. You go one of two ways. You either are like, it's either a real gem that you polish.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or you hide it under the bed and you never think about it. I'm more that side. Yeah.

[B]

It's interesting. Yeah. I wonder what the psychological makeup. In what ways it has to be different for you to be a person who either obsesses over things you're afraid of or just pushes under the bed. Because I'm a push under the bed person as well. Interesting.

[A]

I don't know, but I think many people are obsessed over and some people are pushed under the bed.

[B]

But I think the reason it's so relevant for Gone Girl is that it's the sort of the due process that happens in Gone Girl. And, like, the detectives are very big characters in Gone Girl.

[A]

Love the detective.

[B]

I love her so much. I love when she knows Amy is lying. At the very end when Amy comes out and she's like doing her whole traumatized bit and she's like, trying to help the police. And she's got this very soft voice, her soft, traumatized voice.

[A]

Let me just go back to the bit where I was being held against my will. Murderer.

[B]

He beat me, shaved me.

[A]

And the way that all the men are like, oh, God, Oh, God.

[B]

Don't say a word, but say more words.

[A]

What's the name of the detective? Detective? I Want to say Boney.

[B]

Yes, it's Boney.

[A]

Boney.

[B]

And she goes. And back to the credit cards.

[A]

And it's so great because you can see that what's happening there. People are like, she's not really being supportive of the sisterhood.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But she's not. Because she knows she's full of shit.

[B]

She's full of shit.

[A]

So full of shit.

[B]

And like that. It's so good. Honestly, the whole cat and mouse from then on could be between Boney and Amy and it would be just as satisfying. It's like there's so many satisfying microdynamics within this movie that, like, that's such a small scene. But it's so good. So funny, but also so scary.

[A]

It's so scary. I also wanted to mention, I think it's quite. It's a really mean depiction of the film, but one that's also really funny.

[B]

What?

[A]

The idiot. Preg.

[B]

It's so funny. Noel Hawthorne again.

[A]

I think that's one of those moments where there is. And I do think it's largely a fi. It's not fictional, but it's fictionalized the divide between the childless and the child having.

[B]

Right, right, right. So remind us who Noel.

[A]

Noel is Amidan's best friend who lives down the road and is pregnant again. And Amy befriends her as part of her master plan to murder herself. And I think there is, I say, this kind of fictionalized idea that somehow women who don't have children and women who do have children secretly loathe one another. And that all women with children consider women without children to be like foolish Peter Panettes. And all women without children consider those who have children to be just terrible, boring, trad wives. And that's obviously not true. There are definitely dynamics.

[B]

There are dynamics.

[A]

There are dynamics.

[B]

There are always dynamics.

[A]

There are certain wonderful articles which I think have been written about the way in which, like, to a certain extent, people with kids are just like, what the fuck? You don't have any problems. And people without kids are like, why do we only talk about this now? But this is one of those moments where in this film just, like, going, oh, but what if I did frame my husband for murder? She goes, but what if I did fucking hate and have great disdain for anyone with children. And the way she just spends this whole narrative being like, befriend an idiot.

[B]

Local idiot.

[A]

Befriend local idiot. Steal local idiot's urine. Local idiot with, like, three kids. Like, on every level, every time there's an opportunity to be like, but what if I did?

[B]

Oh, what if I did? Yeah.

[A]

Finn takes it and it's just joyful Noel. It's so a fun, perfect little side character who is a caricature of a thing, of a person who doesn't really exist, but exists in the minds of culture.

[B]

Yes. I think that's really interesting as well in terms of like people who don't really exist. But like, I think everybody in this movie exists either through. We're very much seeing it through our two narrators eyes, through Nick's eyes, or through Amy's eyes. And I do think it's that we're seeing an exaggeration of characters. Every woman that Nick meets is like some sort of caricature of like that one with the Frito pie. And she takes a selfie of him.

[A]

And he like, I will show it to whomever I please.

[B]

It's so good. I will show it to whomever I please. So good. Everyone's just like accentuated and turned up. I'm a little bit camp and it makes so much sense for a movie that is so dark in tone and so dark in cinematography. And then you have these mental little characters everywhere. It's like an advent calendar just popping out of every door. It's so good.

[A]

Do you know one of my favorites? The Cat?

[B]

The cat.

[A]

The cat.

[B]

That cat has nothing going on.

[A]

That cat just sits around.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And has so much more screen time than a non playable character ought to.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

It adds nothing to the plot. It takes nothing away from the plot, does not advance the plot. It does not show us how the characters feel. And yet clearly the director was like, I just like that cat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm just gonna film that cat.

[B]

All the crucial moments. I was hoping to get more info on the cat by reading the book this week.

[A]

Is the cat even in it?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. The cat's called Bleecker. And the thing with the cat is he's just really dumb. Do we think he's a big ginger dumb cat?

[A]

Here's the question. Is the cat the avatar for the audience? Are we all the cat? Just big dumb ginger cats watching the film being like, I don't know what's going on?

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

Do I get food?

[B]

Maybe.

[A]

What does the cat symbolize?

[B]

I think so. In the book, the one time where the cat is important, important, plot wise is. And I actually. I think this is actually trying to the film, but it's such a tiny scene that we don't see it is that Nick realizes that Amy is missing because A neighbor calls because the cat has got out. The cat's a house cat and the cat's got out. And so the very first scene when he's going back into the house has been broken into. He scoops up the cat.

[A]

I see. I feel like that could have been missed out in the screenplay.

[B]

Yeah, but because, like, I mean, sure, keep that bit in. But like, we get so many pans to the.

[A]

So many shots.

[B]

I'm like, is the cat gonna talk soon or what?

[A]

Is the cat gonna, like, cough up a murder weapon? Is the cat gonna.

[B]

The cat is aching with relevance, but.

[A]

I don't know what it is, but.

[B]

It never becomes relevant.

[A]

The only other thing I wanted to say, because there may be something you want to say, but one thing that really struck me, you turned to me as you watched this film and you said, I hope they make Gone Girl the musical. And I specifically hope. Hope that the person who writes all the songs for Gone Girl the musical is Taylor Swift.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because she loves a murder ballad. She would do it very well. It would have to be then called.

[B]

A Girl Called Gone, A Girl called Gone, a girl book in lyrics by Taylor Swift. Taylor Allison Swift.

[A]

Taylor Allison Swift, who may or may not be releasing a book called A Girl Called Girl. But, like, listen, Taylor or Tricky.

[B]

This is the latest from Taylor is that this been some leaked information that she's planning a book, a novel release, a YA novel that she wrote when.

[A]

She was 14 called A Girl Called Girl.

[B]

I really hope it's not true. I think that's a terrible idea.

[A]

But if her team is listening, and sometimes I wonder if they might, because we talk about her so much, they must worry. Don't let her do that. But instead direct her to do A Girl Called Gone. And that could just be collaborating with Gillian Flynn on a musical version of Gone Girl, which she'd be fucking fantastic at issue.

[B]

I've been thinking about it so much since, like. But like, the. So you could actually, if you wanted to write a Gone Girl musical, a jukebox musical of Gone Girl music you could use as a Taylor Swift song for everything.

[A]

Could have just used her entire existence.

[B]

Yes. So much of her discography is just about two people falling out of love in, like, quite, like, terrible ways or whatever. Half of Tortured's department could be on the whole thing. Like, it's like. But like, what I would love most of all is if Taylor Allison Swift writes an actual Gone Girl musical. I think she would be. Be fucking great as is.

[A]

I think it would be. I think it'd be life changing.

[B]

Because I think. I think what. There's like, two things that Taylor Allison Swift loves the most. Which is number one, passive income. Number two, she does.

[A]

And number two, and she does it so well.

[B]

A project, you know. And from. From the various leaked bits we've been having about Taylor lately. There's like a bit where she's like, fuck. Searchlight has taken her on to do a movie for a script. She's written this novel. Obviously. I think she's having this feeling. I mean, I did. I totally get it, like 20 years into her career. That she sort of conquered music. And like, there's new challenges and new ways she could express herself. And I'm in favor of that. But it has to be the right project and has to be Gone Girl musical.

[A]

It has to be a musical of Gone Girl.

[B]

Because she is so Amy Dunn.

[A]

She is very Amy Dunn.

[B]

Because, like, also so much her Easter eggs.

[A]

The way that she does treasure hunts for her fans every year about herself. She just does them.

[B]

It's.

[A]

She makes them for her fans. She's like murdered. She's fantasized about it loads. The wolf inside Taylor fantasizes about murdering men whilst also having sex with them. Both of those wolves are very strong.

[B]

Yeah. Very strong wolves. And like, the. And also Amy Dunne is so like, you get this in the book and in the movie. The thing of, like, she's so obsessed with creating perfect little moments. And like, she says she, like, she really enjoys her relationship with Nick when it's going well. And she orchestrates these moments. And she wants him to behave in certain ways. And she wants to catch them in snow globes of perfection. Because she wants to be the best at being in love. And that sounds a lot like someone we know.

[A]

It sounds a lot like someone who said, my love should be celebrated. But you just tolerate it.

[B]

Like, literally, you could Mamma Mir.

[A]

Taylor Swift's Struggle 3. And it would just be Gone Girl.

[B]

Yeah. And it would be really good. It would be so good. Tree pain.

[A]

Tree. Come on.

[B]

Send us up the flank bowl to Taylor. It's a fucking no brainer.

[A]

She's obviously read the book. She's obviously seen the film.

[B]

Yeah. Come on.

[A]

Musicified. They've done a Gillian frillian Gone Girl river cruise.

[B]

They have, yes. Imogen West Nights wrote about it.

[A]

It is a perfect article. I sometimes, if I'm ever feeling a bit down and sad and need a bit of joy in my life, I simply read Imogen West Knight's article about the Gone Girl River Cruise. This is a book that is ready to be franchised in every single direction.

[B]

In every sense of the word.

[A]

Anything new?

[B]

I was talking to my friend Tash about it, and she was saying. She. We were saying, like, I think Gone Girl was the last capital G. Great story in terms of, like, a big.

[A]

Thing to say to your novelist friend.

[B]

Right. But I so get what she means in the sense of, like, these, like, things, like Stephen King's Carrie. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Things that just enter the consciousness and then never leave and they just, like, become these, like, mitts, these stencils, like the Fyre Festival. And, like, those only come along once every in a while. And I think Gone Girl was our last big, great story.

[A]

Listen, I'm not sure if I think it was the last one, but I think it was a very recent one.

[B]

Obviously, I don't mean, like, good story.

[A]

I don't mean, like, recent. I don't know. I'd have to do a bit of, like, a recce. But I do think once the title of a book or film just becomes a verb in its own right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Then, yeah, you're in great storytelling because you can literally just be like, oh, yeah, just gone Girled.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You can. Gone Girl. To gone girl is clearly a verb in the lexicon.

[B]

But you can even say to another woman if you're talking about a third woman, which is women's favorite hobby. If you said, like, apart from planning.

[A]

Our own murders, Apart from planning our.

[B]

Own murders, our hobbies are talking about other women. If I said to you, oh, she's very cool girl, you know, and if I said it with that inflection, you would know exactly what I mean, and you would know it is not a compliment. Yeah, yeah. It's like, this movie has great utility. Here's something.

[A]

It is great art.

[B]

Here's something that I think should be a meme, and I can't believe why it isn't. When Amy is in the Ozarks in her motel, and she flips to a calendar in five months time, and it just says kill self on a poster in the middle of the month. It's so funny.

[A]

Question mark. Kill self.

[B]

Kill self, Kill self. Like, how is that not a meme? So much worse things are memes.

[A]

So much worse things are memes. And in the end result, when she suddenly was like. When she has her great revelation, she's like, wait, why should I have to kill myself? Again, very relatable for many women.

[B]

Why should I have to kill myself?

[A]

Why am I taking the knife on myself.

[B]

Isn't it weird we get the knife on him? Yeah. Is it so weird the way she's a horrible person? She's a psychopath. We should be praying for her downfall. And I am so wounded on her behalf when her friends rob her.

[A]

So wounded.

[B]

I know. She's just a little. She trusted them, sort of. And as much as Amy doesn't trust anybody.

[A]

Yeah, she trusts them a bit.

[B]

She's spat in their drinks, but whatever. She had a good time with them.

[A]

She had a good time with them and then they betrayed her. And that's just gonna add to the narrative that she has for herself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is that she's uniquely unlovable and unfriendable. It started with her parents, who every time she didn't want to do a thing were like, we've got a better imaginary daughter who does that thing.

[B]

So crazy.

[A]

I continued on with.

[B]

I love the Amazing Amy stuff.

[A]

It's so.

[B]

Again, it really feels like really worn.

[A]

In a real indictment of. Again. I think the whole theme of this film for me is stuff that is your deepest fear. What if it's true? What if your parents are secretly incredibly disappointed in you, even though you are extremely high achieving and great? What if they actually think you would be better if you played the Cell and one of the books about it?

[B]

That is awful. That is awful.

[A]

It's just. This film's great.

[B]

It's so good.

[A]

It's a real, like, exploration of the kind of. The psychic underbelly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's like an ID film, you know, just in there. It's just in there, diving through.

[B]

I love it so much.

[A]

I love it so much. I think this is. This is really. It's going on to my life. It's gonna be an annual rewatch for me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I've let it sort of sit for a while. I've let it mature in the cellar, you know.

[B]

Yeah. Because it kind of feels like it did sort of come and go when it. Like, I think maybe because David Fincher is such a blokey director or whatever, that's what he's thought of that, like, maybe there wasn't enough in it for men. But it's a woman's picture. This is a woman's picture.

[A]

Woman's picture.

[B]

Is there anything else?

[A]

I don't think so. I just think how wonderful to end. I know not to quite end. Obviously there is next week, tune in. It'll be great. But to end our film watching together on this spectacular women's picture, A best women's picture. A women's best picture.

[B]

I love the women's picture.

[A]

I think. I think it was the perfect choice.

[B]

Yeah, me too. I feel so good about it. There's travel, she's gone.

[A]

There's travel.

[B]

We're gone.

[A]

There's gone. There's a big project, a big summer project.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's big terrier energy.

[B]

I guess. I guess now we should like. Because we'll probably forget to do this when we're live on stage in Lisbon. We should talk about what's next in terms of what they can expect from us, which is, well, from sentimental garbage. I guess I should do the housekeeping.

[A]

You see that for me, you can expect a continual.

[B]

Well, you should, you know, you do events and things.

[A]

I do do events and things. So I do events, but often tell.

[B]

People where to find you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So where can people follow you?

[A]

To find my Instagram, which is Ounifer.

[B]

Why? Just trying to make you benefit from this series in any way at Kownifa.

[A]

Like, if you imagine the name Jennifer county, you put it together in one word. That's me. And do I post regularly? No, but I do tend to tell people when I'm doing events.

[B]

Yes. And the literature account.

[A]

And the literature account as well. Yeah. That's also better being updated because Fiona does that more than me.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Yeah. So I'll be around doing stuff and also writing a novel.

[B]

Glad I could hold your hand through that one.

[A]

Thank you so much. Thank you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you so. Thank you. Look, I'm not very good at that. Maybe I'll get better at being a 10 on the head, a 10 on the heart, a 10 on the self promo.

[B]

Yeah. This can be your, like autumn winter hostessing project of hostessing your own work with your mouth.

[A]

Oh, well, hosts may not be mouth. And what will you be doing, Caroline, in this autumn winter? What will be happening in this podcast?

[B]

Well, there will be some episodes, I think. It will not be regular programming. I have got the Marian Keys light episode, which is going to go out and that's really fun.

[A]

I can't wait to listen to that.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's actually a really good one. I'm really pleased with it and I think I'm going to have like, intermittently I'll have pals on if something interesting comes up. But on the whole, don't expect a weekly podcast. I don't really. If I'm really realistic, I don't think I'm going to come back on regular season until early next year possibly. And I'm Actually, I'm excited to store up some new thoughts, I guess, because, like, you do get conscious when you run a weekly podcast. And, like, I have been doing one every week for a really long time now that you're kind of retreading ideas a lot. And those are good because it means that the ideas get really broken in and you're getting a real 360 view of what you really think about something and getting to the bottom of something. But also, you get tired of your own thoughts and your bits. And, like, I'm really, like, in January, I'll have new stuff to think about.

[A]

You'll have new jokes to make. You'll have new things to say.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

New perspectives. You'll have been hostessing for several months.

[B]

By then, I'll have been hostessing. Maybe I'll have things to share on that journey. Right now, the most people I've ever hosted is. Is three.

[A]

That's a good number.

[B]

You know, that would be nice.

[A]

I think you could get to, like. I think you could do eight.

[B]

That's so many.

[A]

I think you could do it.

[B]

That's too many. I literally had. Shocked me.

[A]

I had too many. You look like silver been trapped in a laundry basket. I know. I think you're gonna get there. Maybe not. Maybe not. Like, between now and then, I would.

[B]

Like to get up to six people, including Gav and yourself. Yeah.

[A]

That's only one more than you've previously done.

[B]

No. Yeah, no, no. What I mean is, I'd like to.

[A]

Get up to hosting four people.

[B]

Yeah. If I can host four people, that would be very nice for me.

[A]

I was saying eight, including you and Gav. That's six.

[B]

Okay, eight. Okay. Yeah. Okay, eight, including me and Gav.

[A]

Stretch goal.

[B]

That's a stretch goal. Yeah. Oh, God.

[A]

No, I think it's gonna be great.

[B]

Here are my other things I would like to get done. I would like to have headed paper.

[A]

I think that's a really easy thing to do.

[B]

I know. That's why it's a small goal.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

That's. My other goal is headed paper.

[A]

Headed paper for you.

[B]

Yeah. I also want to join a climbing wall.

[A]

I'll come with you.

[B]

Yeah. It's such a good back and core workout, and it's really fun.

[A]

Good for the little hands as well.

[B]

Good for the little claw hands.

[A]

Little claw hands. I've got very weak hands. I think I need to work on that. Maybe we'll climb together.

[B]

These are very modest goals. Apart from the eight people. That's scary.

[A]

The eight people thing is scary, but I think you can do it. And get more chairs. Look, no, it's fine. Just bring stools, okay? Get people to bring their own chairs. Okay, listen, I think it's gonna be a wonderful autumn winter, and you'll hear.

[B]

From me occasionally, but not Fred occasionally.

[A]

And, yeah, you won't hear from me so much, but you'll know I'm there, always in the background, watching Emily in Paris. Like Faz are in the sky. Just Syl, just like Star sticking her face in my face. Just having impure thoughts.

[B]

Anyway, thank you, everyone.

[A]

Thank you, everyone. We'll see you next week for one final run round the merry go Round. There we go in Lisbon.

[B]

Love you guys.

[A]

Love you lot.

[B]

Bye.

[A]

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