A third New Yorker piece extolling the virtues and intrigues of Gone Girl? On top of a Maureen Dowd column in the N.Y. Times about the myth of dangerous, manipulative women? Plus that intriguing Charlie Rose chat from a few days ago? Not to mention $78 million at the box-office after two weekends, making it the fall’s first big-time hit? That’s it, the die is cast, lockdown…Gone Girl is an Oscar nominee for Best Picture.

It won’t win, of course. The softies who have already decided to give the Oscar sight unseen to either Unbroken (curtsy to the Queen!) or Interstellar (“To break bayhhrriers, to reach for the stahhhrrs”) will see to that. But at least there’s no doubt about its nominatable-ness along with, obviously, Rosamund Pike for Best Actress, David Fincher for Best Director, Gillian Flynn for Best Adapted Screenplay, Tyler Perry for Best Supporting Actor and Kirk Baxter for Best Editing.

“Before a TV interview, Nick, the most hated man in America, is instructed, ‘You have to admit you’re a jerk and that everything was all your fault.’ ‘So, like, what men are supposed to do in general?,’ he replies. This line got a lot of rueful laughs at the screening I attended. Gone Girl is as much about the near impossibility of being a good husband as it is about the anguish of being a good wife. The bat-shit preposterousness of the marital ‘accord’ ultimately reached by Nick and Amy is an indictment of the state of marriage, and of heterosexual relations more broadly.

“As the closing credits rolled and the lights came on, to the menacing Reznorian soundtrack, there was a lot of stunned blinking in the house. There was nervous laughter. A few people looked depressed. It’s possible to watch Gone Girl and feel that you have seen something terribly bleak. But it’s also possible to receive it as good news. Any powerful articulation of the need for change is also a testimony to the possibility of change. Someone is screaming bloody murder, and a lot of people are listening.” — from Elif Batuman‘s 10.10 New Yorker piece, “Marriage Is An Abduction.”