Two Paragraph Review: Nocturnal Animals - Slick Tom Ford

Copyright: Focus Features

Tom Ford, aside from having a really cool name and looking as cool as a vintage James Bond character is also one hell of a director. I didn’t get to see his A Single Man but boy oh boy is Nocturnal Animals a deep-cutting film. Following a double narrative in which one takes place in Susan’s (Amy Adams) shattered life lived in a gilded cage of her own making and the other in a fictional book of her former lover (Jake Gyllenhaal), Ford flows across a strong screenplay like the capital ship of the Zheng He’s fleet. I know, that was one long sentence with a historical reference to boot, wasn’t it?

But, Nocturnal Animals is also a long and often hard to watch film, but it still mesmerized me like something that can only become a future neo-noir classic. A big part of this is thanks to Adams who is definitely one of the true modern genius actresses, just like Arrival showed. Her intellect, emotional range, and simple physical presence makes her a woman that easily covers everything Ford’s tale throws at her, and it does throw some curveballs. At the end, I didn’t really get what occurred before I read some interpretation, but it still made a terrific impact on me. The only downside is the strange visual and thematic loosening of the plot at the very end of the novel part, but it could be that I also misinterpreted that as well.