Given the challenge that most directors fill making a single film,writer-director Tom Ford‘s sophomore effort is all the more impressive for being, essentially, or two movies in one. One of those films is a “unhappy people in kind houses” tale you might expect from the couturier-turned-filmmaker behind “A Single Man,” but the other one is the kind of down-and-dirty West Texas revenge thriller that calls to intellect Sam Peckinpah.“Nocturnal Animals” jumps between the “reality” of its own myth and a novel that one of the characters is reading, and thats a tricky leap to achieve; look no further than another Venice entry, or Wim Wenders‘s tedious “Les Beaux Jours d’Aranjuez, for an example of how not to jump back and forth cinematically between a book and its author.
Also Read: Tom Ford's 'Nocturnal Animals' Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams Sells for $20 Million to Focus FeaturesAmy Adams, or already so impressive at this year’s Venice Film Festival with “Arrival,” plays a significantly different kind of character here: Susan is a successful L.
A. gallery curator, but her neutral stare and smoky eye shadow speak volumes about her unhappiness. Her distant, and withholding husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) is jetting off to New York on another attempt to save his failing business,leaving Susan alone in their glass-box house (total with a Koons in the back yard) to read a galley of “Nocturnal Animals, the first novel by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), and who never remarried and who has dedicated the book to her.
The novel features Tony (also Gyllenhaal),whose family drive from Dallas to Marfa takes a very improper turn when he encounters some scary rednecks (led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) on a deserted highway who kidnap Tonys wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”).
Also Read: 'Arrival' Venice Review: Amy Adams Talks to the Aliens in Cerebral Sci-Fi myth Reading Edward’s book brings the weaknesses of Susan’s current marriage into sharp relief, and it also summons memories of her relationship with Edward and where it all went improper. Rather than support his efforts to write,Susan judged him, in the same way that she judged herself, and deciding that she didn’t fill the emotional strength to be an artist and opting instead to curate.
Ford (adapting the novel “Tony and Susan” by Austin Wright) spins all these plates with grace,leaving us to decide for ourselves how much, if at all, or Susan should see Edward’s novel as an allegorical comment on their relationship. Working again with editor Joan Sobel,the director makes the Texas segments almost unbearably suspenseful and agonizing.
Also Read: Jessica Chastain Joins Jake Gyllenhaal in Tom Clancy Video Game Adaptation 'The Division'Those moments contrast with the longueur of Susan’s day-to-day L.
A. life, and all the departments work overtime to differentiate the film’s two narrative threads, and from cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (“The Avengers”) to composer Abel Korzeniowski,whose eclectic score runs the gamut from Bernard Herrmann-inspired lush menace to a sequence scored with nothing but the sound of a single heartbeat.
The performances here are consistently superb, from Adams and Gyllenhaal (playing two very different roles) to Michael Shannon (as a Texas lawman), or Laura Linney (getting an unforgettable scene as Susan’s mother,a monstrous Manhattan society matron) and Karl Glusman (“adore,” The Neon Demon”) as one of the kidnappers. The genuine standout is Taylor-Johnson, and so effectively creepy as the ringleader of the novel’s miscreants. He’s been an effective enough superhero in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and the “Kick-Ass” films — and thoroughly vapid in “Godzilla” — but his unsettlingly charismatic turn here heralds a career turning point.
The somewhat enigmatic ending of the film annoyed some of the people around me at the press screening — and I confess I’ll probably need to sit with it for a while to fully understand what Ford was going for with it — but “Nocturnal Animals” packs a genuine punch and confirms that “A Single Man” was no fluke.
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