Adapted from Austin Wright’s novel Tony and Susan, it is a story within a story, following art gallery owner Susan Morrow, played by the ever sublime Amy Adams, reading from a manuscript that her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) has sent her in the post. Edward has dedicated his soon-to-be-published book to Susan, and as she reads, and is gripped by the story, she finds that it stirs painful memories from her past.
Her life now is one of staid minimalism and materialistic beauty, of designer dresses, crisp suits, liquid black sports cars, and opulent yet lonely interiors. Her husband, the creamy skinned and gorgeous Hutton (Armie Hammer) is probably cheating on her. She is in stasis.
Ford films these sections in blues and blacks and cool reds, slightly underexposed, with deep poolings of shadows. It is a fixed world, and Susan is isolated within it.
But as she reads the manuscript - also entitled Nocturnal Animals - its own world comes alive, and roils the calm waters of her life to turn them turbid, and dredge up shapes she thought long buried.
This second narrative concerns Tony (also Jake Gyllenhaal), on a road trip with his flame-haired wife and their daughter. The family have a run-in with a gang of vicious Texas locals on a backroad in the middle of nowhere, and Tony’s life is plunged into chaos and violence.
It is a tempestuous and gritty and raw story, filmed in sienna and burnt ochre and burnished gold, and it is clear that through its protagonist the writer Edward is exorcising demons, many of which concern Susan, and the manner of their breakup 20 years prior. Susan chokes at the recognition, and reads, and reads, and reads.
It’s a strong film. Both narratives are gripping, although they don’t quite reflect each other to the extent I would have liked. The manuscript is a vengeance thriller, and it starts tense and effective, but doesn’t have very far to develop after that, playing off the fears of the socialised man realising none of his skills can protect his family from aggressive intruders in a way we’ve seen many times before. It would make an adequate but hardly great film in its own right.
Yet as a counterpoint to Susan’s story it is powerful. Susan's world is less intense, yet also filled with pain, and though the dialogue is a touch expositional, the characters of her current husband and her mother a touch overdone, it is still well-observed, and another exceptional performance from Adams carries it over the top.
Nocturnal Animals has interesting and oftentimes moving things to say about love, commitment, courage, masculinity, and wounds that do not heal. That it never quite hits a crescendo where all these elements combine together is a disappointment, but there is still so much here to love. Visually slick, mature in its understanding of relationships, and in the end appropriately enigmatic, it is definitely worth a watch.
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