In “Nocturnal Animals” (Tom Ford’s elegant and disturbing
meta-noir) I found myself liking the fictional “story-within-the-story” far
more than the story around it.
Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, an art gallery owner stuck in
a loveless marriage. One day she receives an advance copy of a novel by her ex
husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal). Sheffield has dedicated the novel
to Morrow, telling her in a note that she provided the inspiration he needed to
write it. She sits down to read the book and we’re transported into the
fictional narrative with her. The film jumps back and forth between the novel
and the “real world.”
The novel tells a fairly standard male revenge story (set in
the dusty, wide open plains of Texas) in which a sensitive, nonviolent man
named Tony (also Gyllenhaal) is emasculated by a trio of sadistic rednecks,
losing his wife and teenage daughter in the process and learns to embrace a
dark and violent dimension of himself he didn’t know he had. Although, Ford’s
handling of it is damned gripping, equal parts stomach churning and
exhilarating.
During one of the first scenes, as Tony and his family are
driving on a deserted highway at night and the trio of rednecks follow them and
play chicken with their car, you know what’s coming. A feeling of nausea creeps
into your stomach, your palms sweat. Like any great thriller director, Ford
drags the action out, keeping you in a constant state of anxiety. I usually
take notes during screenings but while this internal narrative was going on I was
petrified-- unable to take my eyes off the screen or force my hand to write on
my notepad.
Admittedly, I’m a sucker for any kind of revenge story and this
one has all the right pieces, executed with a visceral precision: a deliberate
pace, a conflicted, angry protagonist on the brink of exploding into a
murderous rage and a truly despicable villain-- Aaron Taylor-Johnson is
terrifying as the lead redneck. Oh and Michael Shannon as a “lets-do-things-off-the-book”
police officer. Shannon is the MVP here (honestly, when is he not?), calmly menacing
in that typical Michael Shannon way. His bulging, unblinking eyes on their own are
enough to make the hair on your neck stand up.
Though, when the action focuses on Morrow outside of this
“fictional” world, “Nocturnal Animals” is not so thrilling. Morrow can’t stop
thinking about the novel in her day to day life and through flashbacks we learn
about her and Sheffield’s romantic history and why they broke up. Through these
flashbacks and the novel itself, a portrait of Sheffield gradually takes shape
and it’s fun trying to figure out his mysterious motives: why did he dedicate this book to her? Unfortunately, this
outer story is still tedious to sit through. While the inner narrative has a
forward pulsing momentum, this one just flatly sits on the screen…literally so.
There are a lot of scenes of Morrow sitting around, staring
pensively into the distance. She stares pensively into the distance while in
the shower…or in the bathtub…or at work. She’s either thinking about the novel
or thinking about her past. Turns out that constantly watching scenes of a
person sitting around and thinking doesn’t make for compelling cinema, even if
it is Amy Adams. Adams does what she can but her performance stays
infuriatingly one note. It got to the point where whenever the film would cut
from Tony’s story to Morrow’s I would breathe a sigh of frustration and eagerly
wait for it to go back.
On its own, Tony’s novel would make for a solid,
well-executed piece of pulp revenge cinema. The framing narrative involving
Morrow and Sheffield provides the southern fried tale of vengeance with an
intriguing meta/psychological layer but the sheer dullness of its execution
ultimately makes “Nocturnal Animals” a mixed bag.
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