Ex fashion guru Tom Ford may start his new movie in the vacuous and pretentious wealthy L.A. art world where everyone is obsessed with appearances, but the other two strands of this multi-layered story take them, and us way out of our comfort zone.
After her latest rather outrageous Opening featuring obese naked middle-aged female majorettes (!) gallery owner Susan Morrow (a sublime Amy Adams) is seen in her stark modernist mansion trying to pretend that her marriage to Hutton (Armie Hammer) is not falling apart just like his business is. When he dashes back to NY ostensibly for a crucial business deal, Susan is left alone in the house with the proofs of her ex-husband’s new novel which had arrived out of the blue as they have not spoken to each other for 19 years. The book that has been dedicated to her is named after her chronic insomnia for which Edward her ex (a fiery Jake Gyllenhaal) called her a nocturnal animal.
As Susan starts reading the novel we see how she imagines it playing out in her head. It’s the story of Tony Hastings (also played by Gyllenhaal) who is traveling with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and their 20 year old daughter India (Ellie Bamber), who look remarkable like Susan and her own daughter Samantha ( India Menuez). The family’s car is forced off a deserted West Texas road in the middle of the night by another car driven by a gang of thugs led by a very menacing Ray Marcus (a shockingly good Aaron Taylor-Johnson). There is no real justified reason that provokes the brutal violence that follows, but when Ray takes off in the car with both women and another gang member leaving Tony behind, it is clear that it isn’t going to end well.
Back in L.A. Susan gets gripped in reading the novel as she tries to fathom out what Edward’s motives were in dedicating it to her. Ford adds the final strand of the story in flashbacks to the time when a young Susan and Edward had originally escaped Texas to go study in New York ….. she wanted to be an artist, and he wanted to write. A chance meeting threw them together and after having confessed to always have been smitten with each other back in the school days, they end up in bed and then in a relationship. When this is about to lead to marriage, Susan’s mother Anne a wealthy Texas matron (a scene stealing performance by Laura Linney) warns her against the match saying that they are not well suited. She proves right as ferociously driven Susan soon loses patience with Edward who is content to wait for the muse to write, and when he does manage too, she is fiercely critical of his work.
Back in the novel, an abandoned Tony, finally manages to make it to the Sheriff’s office where Detective Andes (a brilliant Michael Shannon) initially seems a tad reluctance to trace the perpetrators of the crime, but when it turns into a murder investigation, he becomes very invested in the outcome. In fact he and Tony form a close bond that in the end will insure a satisfactory, albeit very bloody, outcome.
As she reads on with this tale of unprecedented violence Susan very slowly interprets it as a veiled threat and a symbolic revenge tale. She had discarded her writer husband simply to marry a successful businessman who could provide her with all the trappings of wealth that she thought she desired. Now she has them, and despite her protestations, had actually fulfilled her mother’s prediction that she would turn out like her, then her rather meaningless life was about to get even emptier as she has discovered the real reason why her husband was in New York.
Ford is quite a masterful storyteller and he does it all with a considerable panache and a great deal of style. The layered story is both intelligent and sensual and packs enough suspenseful intrigue to ensure you are invested in its outcome to the very end. Adams is pitch perfect as the icy lonely gallery owner who bitterly regrets giving up everything of real importance starting with her ambition to be an artist, and is now facing payback time as her life is exposed for what it really is. Gyllenhaal too gives a wonderful performance as the nice middle-aged man who is so out of his depth as Tony, but is in total control of where Edward wants this story to land.
There have been comparisons of Ford with Hitchcock with this sophomore movie of his which maybe a little too ambitious, but nevertheless Nocturnal Animals packs a very powerful punch which will both shock and totally delight audiences.
