Nocturnal Animals
Written and Directed by Tom Ford, from the novel by Austin Wright
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
“Nocturnal Animals” is a Tom Ford Film, as we are told in the opening credits, where his name is featured an additional three times (“produced by”, “screenplay by”, “directed by”), and then once again after the final fade-out, lest we forget. Why someone would be anxious to seek elaborate recognition for such a darkly pretentious piece of business is anybody’s guess. Maybe it’s a fashion thing.
The picture begins with a grotesque burlesque – a pod of obese exotic dancers, intercut with overhead shots of the Los Angeles freeway, which is either a metaphor for something, or the kick-off to a shrewd David Lynch parody. Turns out these women (who are as brave as they are difficult to watch) are a feature of a swank gallery opening, masterminded by Susan Morrow (Amy Adams). Ms. Adams has a wonderful range (see “Doubt”, then see “The Fighter”), but here she is asked to operate principally on two gears: lost and lonely. We see her brooding later in a starkly chiseled manse in the Hollywood Hills, where she lives with a staff of servants and a philandering, clearly mismatched husband (Armie Hammer). She is unable to sleep – a lost, lonely insomniac.
In the morning, she receives a package containing the manuscript of a novel by her ex-husband, Edward – it is entitled “Nocturnal Animals,” is dedicated to her, and gives her a paper cut in the unwrapping – heads up! When Susan settles in for a read, the main body of the action kicks in – the nightmarish events of the novel played out as a film within a film. Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal) is driving his wife and daughter across west Texas on a lost and lonely highway, where they are terrorized by a trio of thugs. The episode ends badly for the ladies, leaving a distraught Tony to seek justice. Enter Bobby Andes – a dying lawman of unspecified affiliation who helps Tony track down the bad guys (the wonderfully loopy Michael Shannon, whose standout performance here could nevertheless have used a little more Billy Bob Thornton, a little less Bela Lugosi). Long story less long, the punks get what’s coming to them, after which (spoiler alert… oh, never mind) Tony kills himself. Or maybe it’s an accident.
Intercut with all this is a third story, the origins of Susan and Edward (also Mr. Gyllenhaal) as starry-eyed grad students – he to be a writer, she to be something or other artsy, until the reality of bohemian life unnerves her and she leaves him, aborting their child on the way out.
Mr. Ford’s first film, “A Single Man”, was a touching portrait of loss, thanks in great part to the subtle work of Colin Firth, and it felt very much like a personal film that Ford was creating from experience.
This movie, on the other hand, feels so contrived that one can’t help noticing details which, in a confident, original picture, are seamless – that everyone’s makeup is overwrought, that all the men are pretty boys (even the baddies), that the lush score is anomalous to the pictures married to it. There are some striking images – Mr. Ford is not without an eye – but they tend to be jarringly out of proportion. It’s conceivable that the fictional Texas shit-kickers would rape and murder a mother and daughter then leave them erotically intertwined on an open air couch, their alabaster skin fairly glowing in the naked light, but if that’s the case, they should quit mayhem and get themselves an agent.
Mr. Gyllenhaal delivers a workmanlike performance, albeit similarly handcuffed like Ms. Adams (lost and lonely, meet anguished and bitter). And Aaron Taylor-Johnson, as the lead tough in the novel, does the best he can with a role we’ve seen before, and before that.
What we have, in the end, is an elaborately wrought, mean little revenge tale – not the novel (though that, too), but the fact that Edward – published writer at last, despite young Susan’s lack of faith – has used his talent to make his ex-wife feel bloody remorse, dedicating to her a book about a man whose life is torn apart in mercilessly wrenching detail.
How we ultimately know this is because Susan reaches out to Edward – in town, on his book tour – tells him how moved she is by the writing, and can they meet? And we fade out on Susan, sitting by herself at a table, on her second or third drink, stood up by Edward, feeling… well, you know….
See trailer below for a hint.
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“Nocturnal Animals” is showing at Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. For showtimes and tickets, click here.
