Here Are All the Big Differences Between 'Gone Girl' the Book and 'Gone Girl' the Movie

[Warning: This post is entirely spoilers.]

Contrary to reports, the Gone Girl movie doesn’t change the book’s ending. (According to author Gillian Flynn, that rumor began with a Ben Affleck quote that was taken out of context.) That said, Flynn’s screenplay for the David Fincher thriller is a different beast from her novel: It’s leaner, meaner, and contains 100 percent fewer stolen catfish. Based on one viewing of the film, here’s a semi-comprehensive list of what’s been added, changed, and taken away.

Who’s Missing?

—Amy’s teenage best friend, Hilary Handy, who had to transfer schools when she was accused of stalking Amy and pushing her down a flight of stairs.

—Desi Collings’s patrician mother, who looks like Amy and with whom Desi has an unnervingly close relationship.

—Rebecca, the young reporter for a crime blog called Whodunnit, who finds Nick drunk in a bar and gets exclusive video of him gushing about Amy.

—Stucks Buckley, Nick’s meathead high school acquaintance who joins the Amy hunt and leads the investigation into the mall.

—Lawyer Tanner Bolt’s wife, Betsy, who helps media-train Nick by impersonating interviewer Sharon Schreiber.

—Dorothy, the tomato-growing manager of the Ozarks motel.

—“The Hopes”: the babies Amy’s mother miscarried before having Amy.

[Related: The Yahoo Movies Interview: Gillian Flynn on ‘Gone Girl,’ 'Game of Thrones,’ and Great Cheesy Movies]

What’s Missing?

—Amy drinking antifreeze — and saving the vomit — as part of an earlier plan to frame Nick for attempted murder.

—Nick’s break-up with his girlfriend Andie: In the book, he does it at Tanner Bolt’s urging, and she responds by biting his cheek.

—The scene in which Amy helps her Ozarks friend Jeff catch catfish to sell on the black market.

—Amy’s second clue, which leads Nick to Hannibal, Missouri, the boyhood home of Mark Twain. In the book, we learn that Nick’s summer job growing up was playing Huckleberry Finn.

—Many of the stories from Amy’s diary, including the day Nick was laid off; implications of past cheating; their Missouri housewarming party; and scenes involving Nick’s dying mother.

—The story about Amy plotting for a year to get a truck driver fired after he cut her off in traffic.

—Amy’s manipulation of Nick’s father; in the book, she secretly visits him and encourages him to visit the house.

—The effusive notes (“You are WITTY”) that accompanied Amy’s treasure-hunt clues.

—Amy and Nick’s argument the night before her disappearance.

—Amy’s invented fear of blood.

—Some of Amy’s little flaws, including her tendency to get song lyrics wrong, and her inability to reel off seemingly ordinary facts, such as the cost of milk.

—The anniversary dinner reservation that Nick tells police he’d made.

—Boney’s line that explains her affection towards Nick: “You remind me of my little brother.”

—Any mention of Nick’s actual first name, Lance.

—Nick’s suspicious computer search, “body float Mississippi River.”

—Amy’s story that her father sexually abused her, invented to make her more sympathetic to Desi.

What’s Been Added?

—The line about Nick’s “untrustworthy chin.”

—Nick proposing to Amy at an Amazing Amy press event; the event is in the book, but not the proposal.

—Amy and Nick having public sex during her treasure hunts.

—Amy and Nick buying each other the same gift for their second anniversary.

—Amy hitting herself in the face with a hammer to impersonate a battered girlfriend.

—The security cameras in Desi’s house, and the scene in which Amy uses them to fake an escape attempt.

—The final Ellen Abbott interview at the Dunnes’ home.

—Amy’s public pregnancy announcement.

What’s Changed?

—Like author Gillian Flynn (a former Entertainment Weekly staffer), the Nick of the book had been laid off from his job writing for a pop culture magazine. Book Nick constantly references movies, and often mentions feeling like he’s living in a movie — perhaps too self-aware a tendency for Gone Girl’s film version. Similarly, Amy’s part-time career as a quiz writer is rarely mentioned in the film, but in the book, Amy’s diaries are written partially in magazine-quiz format.

—The film gives us a brief glimpse of Nick’s father, who has Alzheimer’s and tends to wander away from his nursing home. In the book, he shows up repeatedly, always muttering a string of slurs against women. The book clearly connects Nick and Margo’s father, who was absent in their childhood and emotionally abusive to their mother, with Nick’s own misogynist tendencies.

—There is real affection between Andie and Nick in the book — at least, at the beginning. The film shows a relationship entirely based on sex, but book Nick genuinely believes he loves his student mistress, who is portrayed as naïve but not stupid.

—Some physical details have changed from the book, i.e., Amy does not appear to be older than Nick; Nick’s hair isn’t blond; Margo is mousier than described; and Det. Boney is prettier.

—While the media looms large in the film, the role of the internet has been reduced. In the book, Nick’s videos on the crime blog Whodunnit are what turns public opinion back in his favor, rather than his televised interview. It’s also mentioned that Amy befriends Andie on Facebook, using a fake identity, in order to keep tabs on her.

—The tell-all memoir that Nick is writing at the end of the book doesn’t appear in the film; instead, he’s planning a full confession on live television. Amy not only quashes his plan, but tells him he must confess to the abuses she invented for the diary.

—The “cool girl” speech has been partially rewritten for the movie.

—Desi’s obsession with Amy has been scaled back slightly for the film. In the book, Desi seems to have designed his lake house long ago with Amy in mind, including a greenhouse full of tulips (her favorite flower as a teenager) and a bedroom painted dusty rose (her favorite color in high school).

—The morning of the crime, Nick visits a beach alone. In the book, he also sees Andie and spends time in the garage reading back issues of his old magazine.

—In the book, nosey neighbor Shawna Kelly only turns on Nick after he rebuffs her advances.

—The abandoned mall scene in the film is briefer than the one in the book, with the police leading the investigation (rather than Nick, Amy’s father, and Stucks Buckley, who take the lead in the mall-search in Flynn’s book).

—Amy’s parents, Rand and Marybeth Elliott, play a larger role in the book. They’re held up as the opposite of the Nick and Amy relationship: a genuinely loving, supportive couple who just happen to have a giant blind spot when it comes to their daughter. Rand is also a kind of surrogate father to his son-in-law, to the extent that he sides with Nick even after Marybeth suspects him of foul play.

—In the film, the ex-boyfriend Amy accused of raping her has to plead guilty and register as a sex offender. In the book, Amy drops the charges.

—Amy’s final murder weapon in the book is a butcher knife, not a box cutter, and she sedates Desi with a sleeping pill martini before attacking.

—The interrogation scene between Amy and the police is shortened in the film, and moved from the police station to the hospital.

—The shower conversation in the book is said to last an hour, with Amy making a full confession.

—When Nick finally does make a violent gesture towards Amy in the book, it’s when she denies him a divorce. In the film, he does it when she tells him she’s pregnant.

Notice anything we didn’t? Tell us in the comments!

Watch a video of Ben Affleck talking about his creepy Nick Dunne smile: