Nominated For: Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon.
In Nocturnal Animals an affluent art gallery owner Susan Morrow receives her ex-husband Edward's manuscript for an upcoming novel "Nocturnal Animals" dedicated to her. As Susan reads the horrifying tale of revenge she reflects on her past with Edward and the film sphincters off into three stories that are more interconnected than one would first suspect.
I won't explain much else because the less you know going into the Nocturnal Animals, the more confused you'll be leaving the theater spurring on an intellectual train of thought that will allow you to eventually put all the pieces into place and see the big picture of Nocturnal Animals. Nocturnal Animals like Arrival, another film that was released this year starring Amy Adams based on obscure literature, is a thought-provoking cinematic experience.
Viewers will be baffled by the shock value found in the film's bonkers slo-motion opening sequence of nude morbidly obese women dancing while the opening credits slowly creep onscreen, thankfully giving the audience something else to focus on, and from that point on will likely be striving to understand exactly what is happening and struggle to find connections between the splintered narratives. This is a film that will probably be more enjoyable to watch with successive viewings because the viewer will have already digested the crazy proceedings once. They then might be able to better understand what it all means and believe me, Nocturnal Animals warrants plenty of analysis.
Former fashion designer Tom Ford writes and directs the insightful revenge thriller, taking the viewer on a ride that first exposes them to a refined, elegant environment before plunging them into a fictional take on West Texas that's truly got grit. One of the more interesting aspects of Nocturnal Animals is how fabricated Susan's reality seems and how realistic Edward's fiction appears and Ford further brings out visual juxtaposition between the two as cinematographer Seamus McGarvey brilliantly frames gorgeous picturesque imagery while editor Joan Sobel expertly cuts between the trio of tales. I haven't read Austin Wright's novel on which the film is based, but can say Ford's screenplay is an excellent adaptation for the screen and it's also worth noting that Abel Korzeniowski calamitous compositions are a great underlying accompaniment.
Nocturnal Animals also features a seasoned cast of A-list actors who bring a strange blend of understated and overstated performances that will likely garner praise this coming awards season. Amy Adams' Susan Morrows is simultaneously hopeful in her past and calculating as a result of her long-winding life while Jake Gyllenhaal also gets to inhabit dual personas as Susan's recollections of her past lover Edward Sheffield and the protagonist of "Nocturnal Animals" (Sheffield's novel) Tony Hastings bringing serene sensitivity to one and a brewing venomous longing vengeance to the other.
Two supporting performances steal the show though as Michael Shannon plays an unhinged officer with some Southern drawl and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's deranged redneck sociopath Ray Marcus will make your skin crawl. Other familiar faces including Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, and Laura Linney are to be found in bit-supporting roles and are serviceable for their minuscule screen-time.
The ending of Nocturnal Animals will leave many unsatisfied but the longer my mind dwelled on it, the more appropriate the ending seemed to be considering the overarching theme of revenge. Many will probably be turned off by Nocturnal Animals' oddities, only taking everything at surface level and refusing to dig any deeper, but I found the thriller to be intellectually engrossing and would highly recommend it to anyone that likes to solve puzzles or leave a film pondering the plot.
With that being said, there were some things that don't quite fall into the big picture yet in my mind and I'm sure that once I revisit Nocturnal Animals enough I could decipher the meaning but I'm interested in acquiring it on Blu-Ray for a director's commentary alone. Nocturnal Animals takes a chaotic approach to it's three-pronged story structure and I found bringing order to the chaos through thought processes the most satisfying part of the viewing experience, but the slick cinematography, exceptional editing, mixture of nuanced and exaggerated performances, and concentrated direction amidst the insanity alone make Nocturnal Animals worth a watch.
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