'NOCTURNAL ANIMALS' which I saw in the week was written for the Screen, Co-Produced and Directed by fashion designer Tom Ford whose previous fashion credits include time as the creative brains behind Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and then his own label Tom Ford. This is only the second Directorial outing for the man who is already making a name for himself in the world of cinema. Ford set up his own Production Company, Fade to Black, in 2005 and his debut as Director came in 2009 with
'A Single Man' with Colin Firth in the lead role. That film picked up 34 award wins and another 52 nominations including an Oscar nod for Firth in the Best Lead Actor category and it made US$25M from its US$7M budget outlay. Now Ford is back with his second film that has already been widely acclaimed having won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival in early September this year. The film was made for US$22M and so far grossed US$6M and is based on the 1993 novel
'Tony & Susan' by Austin Wright.
'Nocturnal Animals' tells the story of successful Los Angeles art gallery owner Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) who at the beginning of the film is seen hosting the launch of a new display in her gallery attended by all of LA's beautiful people, movers & shakers and people that matter. The opening sequence over which the credits roll is particularly 'revealing' and for some possibly confronting, but it's all in the name of 'art'. After the end of the evening we see Susan drive up to the gates of her private estate - all glass, concrete and stainless steel - very austere, very wealthy and quite lifeless. Susan lives there with her husband Hutton (Armie Hammer), and an entourage of maids, a butler, a driver and all the trappings of success. But underneath this facade lies a struggling businessman whose financial fortunes are dwindling and he needs to secure a deal in New York to keep their heads above water. He's booked on a flight out to New York the next day, a Saturday - putting paid to plans for Susan to have a quite weekend away at their beach house. Already there is a sense that all is not well between them.
That morning, a package is delivered to the Morrow household marked for Susan's attention. Opening the brown paper wrapping Susan gains a paper cut, and has the Butler finish off the unwrapping, then orders the household staff to take the weekend off - all of them. The contents of the package are seen to be a manuscript from her long estranged ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) - a man whom she left nineteen years earlier after just a couple of years of marriage. Edward has typed a note asking her to read the yet unpublished novel which he has titled
'Nocturnal Animals' and dedicated it to her. He always used to call Susan a nocturnal animal on account of the fact that she hardly ever sleeps - a habit she has to this day, and he calls for her opinion when she has finished reading. He states that he will be in Los Angeles later the following week and would welcome the chance to meet up over dinner to renew acquaintances and gain her opinion of his manuscript.
With Hutton flying off to New York, Susan settles down and cautiously opens the manuscript and starts reading. The story centres around Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal) - an easy going unassuming mild mannered everyman who is heading off to West Texas in the car with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and teenage daughter India (Ellie Bamber) for a few days R&R, and they have chosen to drive through the night. On a deserted stretch of highway late into the night, Tony is forced off the road by three young local hoons out to cause some trouble, resulting in two badly dented cars and a blown front tyre to Tony's Merc. The hoons - Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Lou (Karl Glusman) and Turk (Robert Aramayo) come on strong saying that it was Tony's fault, and demand that they exit the car so that they can replace the blown tyre with the spare, trying to lull the family into a false sense of security. At first Ray plays the tough guy, then he winds down showing sympathy for their predicament, then ramps up his anger again, and so it continues as Laura and India get roughed up, and Tony is punched and kicked. Tony is defenceless against the might of three hoons and powerless to do anything when Ray and Turk drive off in Tony's car with a screaming Laura and India bundled against their wills into the back seat. Tony is ordered into Ray's car with Lou and told to drive down an old dirt track and out into the desert where he is abandoned.
A few hours later as dawn breaks Ray and Turk return to where Lou dumped Tony hoping to locate him under the pretence that his wife is asking after him. Tony cowers behind a rocky outcrop hidden form view and silent until the pair drive off, fearing for his own life. He sets off on foot across the desert scrubland, making it to a road which he follows until he reaches a house, and calls the Police. Sometime later Detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) arrives on the scene having been assigned the case. He has Tony retrace his steps in the Police car down the highway back in the direction from where he came from, in an attempt to find his wife and daughter, and to confirm Tony's story, having already found his car in a creek. They come to an abandoned shack down a dirt track and discover the naked bodies of Laura and India - murdered and raped. Tony is overcome with emotion and guilt having not been strong enough to stand up to the thugs who did this.
At this point Susan stops reading shocked by the savage nature of the book and the raw emotion flowing through the pages. She remembers her meeting with Edward all those years ago and announcing to her mother their intentions to marry. Susan's opinionated, strong willed and forthright mother, Anne Sutton (Laura Linney) suggests that Edward is not her equal in so many respects and that it would be foolish for them to marry knowing that it will be short-lived. She does it anyway, rebelling against her parents wishes and for her love of Edward who has so many other qualities anyway. Susan speaks with Hutton upon his arrival at the hotel in New York at 4:00am in the morning. He is in a lift going up to his room on the 31st floor, when she overhears the lift attendant announce the floor number to a woman in the lift, and she surmises that Hutton is having an affair - a fact that she was already suspicious off. She continues reading.
Fast forward a year and Andes contacts Tony asking him to identify Lou who has been charged as an accomplice to the rape and murder of Laura and India. Tony makes a positive ID, and Lou is arrested. Turk was shot dead in a robbery gone awry leaving only Ray still to be brought in for questioning. Andes arrests Ray taking Tony along for the ride and to positively ID Ray.
They question the suspect in a car identical to Tony's Merc and drive along the same dirt track and pass by the shack to jog Ray's memory, but he pleads his innocence and claims to know nothing of Tony or any murder or rape. Later Andes calls Tony with the news that Ray has been released because the evidence against him is only circumstantial. During that same conversation, Andes asks Tony how far he is prepared to go to see that justice is served. As a result Tony drives over immediately to meet Andes in a roadside Cafe where Andes announces that he has a year to live having been diagnosed with acute lung cancer, and his early retirement is being forced upon him now. Andes wants to see this case closed and is prepared to take the law into his own hands no matter what the consequences are, but wants to know that Tony is in. Tony agrees, and the two perpetrators are bought to an isolated house handcuffed. Andes releases their handcuffs while Tony reluctantly holds them at gunpoint and in a moment of distraction the two run off. Lou is shot in the back by Andes making his escape, but Ray has fled. The two head off in opposite directions with the aim of closing in on Ray ultimately, believing that he would have gone back to his shack.
Susan puts down the book and recalls her troubled marriage to Edward and how she is desperately unhappy and wants out. Edward pleads with her not to give their love away, but it seems that everything her mother warned Susan about years before is now coming home to roost. Despite Edwards best intentions, Susan is already carrying on with Hutton, and in a final act of treachery against Edward she aborts her pregnancy of his child - a fact she tried to conceal from Edward, but which he all too soon afterwards discovered, and with which she has had to live all these years.
Susan continues reading the closing chapters where Tony tracks down Ray asleep in his shack. Tony again holds Ray at gunpoint, with Ray goading him that he doesn't have the strength to pull the trigger. Ray admits to killing his wife and raping his daughter. The two have a violent confrontation that sees Ray with two bullet wounds in his chest, and Tony getting thumped over the head with an iron bar. Tony comes around hours later with the sun glaring through the open door. His head is badly injured and he can barely see. He stumbles through the door tripping over Rays lifeless body. Outside Tony stumbles through the desert scrub and falls to his knees discharging a bullet into his own stomach from the gun he is still carrying.
Susan finishes reading the manuscript and sends an email to Edward congratulating him on his writing efforts and suggests that they should meet to discuss further, and meet for old time's sake. Throughout the film we are told of Edwards writing aspirations, and his desire to become an author but never quite having the right ingredients to make it - this was one of the reasons for their split years earlier. He responds later that night with a when and where. Susan arranges a meeting place at an up market restaurant and readies herself, seeing their meeting as a reconciliation perhaps and of better times ahead for them both. Susan arrives first and is seated at the table and orders a drink patiently waiting for Edward to arrive. And she waits, and she waits, and she waits, ordering more drinks until the last guests depart and the restaurant is empty. Fade to black!
This gripping, beautifully rendered story within a story offers the viewer two carefully interwoven genres - that of a shiny privileged people melodrama and a gritty modern day Western as the two distinct tales go back and forth with an interconnectedness that speaks of revenge, betrayal, love, loss, loneliness and sadness. Amy Adams is excellent as the detached soulful Susan, Gyllenhaal equally so in his dual roles as the try hard Edward and the intense Tony, and Shannon too as the cancer riddled laconic seen it all rural Cop coughing up a lung whilst determined to see justice served in his last case. Tom Ford despite his only two cinematic offerings to date has proven himself as a master of the craft with a stylish, haunting and distinctive film that will leave you pondering over the ending long after the credits have rolled. It's as though his experience in the world of fashion has morphed to the world of cinema in two easy straightforward seamless strides with beautiful people giving a faultless performance clothed up in a visually stunning story.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
