Nocturnal Animals
Directed by: Tom Ford
Written by: Tom Ford - Based on the novel "Tony and Susan" by Austin Wright
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Karl Glusman, Robert Aramayo, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen, Jena Malone
Drama/Thriller - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 16 Nov 2016
Written by: Tom Ford - Based on the novel "Tony and Susan" by Austin Wright
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Karl Glusman, Robert Aramayo, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen, Jena Malone
Drama/Thriller - 119 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 16 Nov 2016
To quote Mr. T, “I pity the fool who doesn’t like a film to challenge him and then sits through Nocturnal Animals.” I’m pretty sure he said something like that on The A Team. Even during the opening sequence, perhaps the most original and outrageous opening of the year, it will confuse and amuse you trying to figure out what is going on before the reveal a minute later. Adapted from the novel and directed by Tom Ford, known only for 2009’s A Single Man, Nocturnal Animals contains just about every genre yet invented, is non-linear at times jumping back and forth between past, present, and even inside a novel, and contains as much symbolism and allusion as you want it to. Simply put, Nocturnal Animals is a nightmare for anyone who goes to the theater to relax and not think.
Based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright, Nocturnal Animals is billed in the press and previews as a romantic thriller. The thriller part is certainly represented front and center, but romance? That’s a stretch. There is also horror, police procedural, film noir, drawing room intrigue, and emotional drama. Ok, there is no comedy; I don’t remember laughing. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival and is the current record holder for film festival distribution rights as Focus Features forked over $20 million at the Cannes Film Festival for the honor of releasing it. I am sure the execs over there at Focus are well aware, however, that Nocturnal Animals is a film for critics and cinephiles. John Q. Moviegoer isn’t go to touch this thing with an extra large, buttered popcorn.
Based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright, Nocturnal Animals is billed in the press and previews as a romantic thriller. The thriller part is certainly represented front and center, but romance? That’s a stretch. There is also horror, police procedural, film noir, drawing room intrigue, and emotional drama. Ok, there is no comedy; I don’t remember laughing. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival and is the current record holder for film festival distribution rights as Focus Features forked over $20 million at the Cannes Film Festival for the honor of releasing it. I am sure the execs over there at Focus are well aware, however, that Nocturnal Animals is a film for critics and cinephiles. John Q. Moviegoer isn’t go to touch this thing with an extra large, buttered popcorn.
Something else not being touched is Susan Morrow (Amy Adams, Arrival). Susan lives in a Los Angeles mansion staffed with servants; a home as comfortable-looking as the DMV waiting room. Susan runs an art gallery full of ‘things’ only those in the know would ever call art and is married to the staid Hutton Morrow (Armie Hammer, The Birth of a Nation). Hutton jets off to New York far too frequently for it to be anything other than an affair while Susan has a thousand yard stare which says she is well aware there is another woman occupying her husband’s attention. The audience absorbs most of this information through glances and furrowed brows; God forbid Tom Ford put in some dialogue to confirm anything.
Susan’s forever ago grad-school ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal, Prisoners), sends a proof of his new novel, dedicated to Susan, for her to read and maybe offer her reaction when he passes through town next week. Nobody has ever dedicated a novel to me before, but if they did, I I would tear the thing apart forwards and backwards looking for how much real life material the author used. Susan, of course saying nothing, inhales the novel searching for clues. She should be worried. Susan, in a rare moment of speech, says she did something horrible to Edward so long ago.
Enter the metaphor parade. Half of Nocturnal Animals is Edward’s novel brought to life as we jump back to Susan’s eyes devouring pages every now and again. The family in the novel drive through the night in middle-of-nowhere West Texas with no cell reception. A car with three redneck assholes forces the family off the road, scares the hell out of them, kidnaps the wife and daughter, and leaves dear old powerless dad, Tony, also played by Gyllenhaal, to wallow in what he sees as weakness and shame. Soon enough, the bodies of his wife and daughter are found raped and murdered, and Tony meets Detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon, The Night Before), a lawman who knows full well how long and how remote Tony’s chances are of securing justice.
Michael Shannon, habitually fantastic, outshines Gyllenhaal even though Shannon plays the stock role. Bobby Andes is an outback cop familiar with his personal brand of justice and comes off as a million other rural cops we’ve seen on screen. But Shannon kills it. He stares at Tony as only a man who has seen every sick and twisted thing a cop can see can stare. Andes wants ‘and justice for all’ in Tony’s case and may have the perfect scenario to ensure he gets it. Now crawl out of the Texas story and remember, no matter how intense and crazy it gets, and it is nuts, everything happening with Tony and Bobby Andes is a novel, Edward’s novel.
It will take a second or even third viewing, but consider playing the connect the dots game between Susan’s real life and the novel. I spotted a GTO a bit too obviously shoved under our noses which shows up in the novel, but I am sure there are a dozen others. Edward’s novel takes over Susan’s life. Pieces of it pop into her mind at work, keeps her up at night, and even makes one of the most inappropriate jump scares in recent memory. That was a cheap shot there Tom Ford. Edward is talking to Susan through the novel and just as Tony yearns for revenge in the story, we come to realize Edward may be taking out some well written revenge on Susan.
Careful, all the layers here may start to fold in on themselves and make your mind go into overdrive trying to sort it all out. If you’re like me and loved films such as Mulholland Drive and anything else which makes you scratch your head, giddy up. If you prefer to drool your way through fart jokes and machine gun fire, steer clear. There are themes exploring masculinity in contemporary culture, the need for closure, living your life based on who you think you are, or the ultimate horror, “we all turn into our mothers”. Susan believes she chose a life opposite to her true nature and that is why she now suffers alone in her empty mansion with a philandering husband. Bullshit. I believe Susan was pretending she was a go with the flow hipster in grad school and is now represents exactly who she is on the inside. But this is an argument to have with someone you see the movie with; not with a review.
Nocturnal Animals is more than just an overdose of story though. The score by Abel Korzeniowski is full of violins setting up a noir thriller and cluing us into how vacant Susan’s life is while she stares out her massive windows down upon the flickering Los Angeles city lights. This woman is clearly in deep reminisce mode and does not wish to be disturbed. Two time Oscar-nominated Director of Photography Seamus McGarvey gets to play with multiple movies in one as he films the present day in crystal clear digital emphasizing blue tones and cold while he uses actual film in the Texas scenes to get a gritty feeling saturating the screen in deep yellows and heat. Tom Ford directed the hell out of this movie and it takes a special kind of mind to see a plot floating around this maelstrom which he could somehow mold into a cohesive film. Many are going to love Nocturnal Animals and many are going to loathe it. That is typically the sign of a great time at the movies.
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