It's been about twelve hours since I watched Tom Ford's hypnotic, disturbing NOCTURNAL ANIMALS and I'm still not sure exactly how I feel about it.
Alternately beautiful and nearly impossible to look at, the film weaves several tales at once.
Amy Adams stars as artist Susan Morrow. As the film opens, we see her latest gallery work, featuring videos of morbidly obese, naked middle aged women jumping around like long lost cheerleaders, well past their prime. It's hard to watch, off-putting and intentional.
It's the opening of Susan's latest gallery show, yet her perfectly sculpted husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) fails to show, instead catching up with Susan later at their perfectly sculpted home.
In these scenes of Susan's home and work life, Writer/Director Ford creates scenes of finely honed, polished and balanced design. Every appliance is the best, every car is the most expensive, every home and boardroom is the finest of its breed.
It soon becomes apparent that Susan and Hutton's relationship is as sterile as their surroundings.
Susan receives a package at their home.
Inside is an advance copy of a book written by her ex-husband, writer Edward Sheffield.
With Hutton seemingly always gone on business, Susan begins to read Edward's book.
As she does, we are immersed into it as a separate film within the film. Ford does this seamlessly.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays both Edward the writer and the central character of the book, Tony Hastings.
In the second story, we see Tony, his wife and daughter set out on an overnight drive through West Texas. The trio cross paths with some very bad men, leading to Tony watching his wife and daughter being kidnapped and driven away, while he is dropped in the middle of the desert.
This portion of the film is almost impossible to watch, with Ford stretching the peril, family separation and helplessness out in agonizing detail as a beaten Tony sees his family slip away.
Michael Shannon enters the film as Detective Bobby Andes, the perfect embodiment of a Texas sheriff. Bobby forms a bond with Tony as they seek the men responsible.
Where scenes of Susan's current real-life are all sleek modern steel blues and silvers, every scene of the book is rich in bold outdoor colors, separating the scenes in style so clearly that you can always tell if you are in the book, or with Susan as she reads the story.
Ford and his design team do a great job of using splashes of color within Susan's world to tie the two together, or make a point within her world. It's subtle and smart.
Halfway through the film, Ford weaves in a third timeline, taking us back to Susan and Edward meeting in college, their courtship and romance.
Only by seeing all three worlds can Ford set up the climax, which is empowered by all three timelines.
Isla Fisher is very good as Tony's wife, Laura Linney makes a hell of an impression in her one scene as Susan's mother and Michael Sheen is telling early on within Susan's art world.
But at the core of the film are Susan and Edward/Tony. Adams is great in the quieter of the two roles, making her long quest to make the right decisions almost palpable.
Gyllenhaal is one of our finest and most underrated actors. I am surprised he wasn't nominated for Best Actor for his dual role. There are moments as Tony that are some of the best acting of his career, right alongside his roles in "Southpaw", "Zodiac"and "Nightcrawler".
Michael Shannon was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his tortured performance as Bobby, watching his power slip away and determined to do right by Tony.
I don't remember a movie as equally beautiful and ugly at the same time. Maybe David Lynch's 1990 'Wild at Heart"?
Tom Ford seems to be channeling Lynch a bit here, including some of the dialogue that seems at first stilted, yet somehow perfect within Susan's circle.
Many will find the ending sad, but when you think about it within the context of the previous two decades of Susan and Edward's history, is it?
The fact that I'm thinking about it the next day and still not sure what I think rises Ford's ugly, violent, polished story above most films that evaporate an hour after you leave the theatre.
For that reason alone, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS gets a sleepless, disturbing A-.
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