Nocturnal Animals * * * * 1/2

Nocturnal Animals is made up of two stories.  One of Susan in real life, and the other is the book she is reading. The book is an unpublished manuscript sent to her by her former husband

Susan wisely realises, one should
    never right off a writer.  

Edward who wanted to be a writer, but Susan felt he’d never make it.  So she left him many years ago for another man.

Susan and her current husband run an art gallery, but the gallery is financially struggling and their relationship is struggling too.

As Susan is reading the manuscript we fade into the story that Edward has written - and it is terrifying.

Like any reader the characters in the book look as she imagines them and she imagines the lead character to look like Edward.

The story is horrifying but she finds the manuscript “un-put-downable” as they say in the publishing world. The dark story tells of a man and his wife and teenage daughter driving on a lonely highway and being attacked by a gang of men with nothing but evil on their minds.

The film takes us in and out of the book.  There is also another story - Susan's memory - which takes us back to the early days of of Susan’s relationship with Edward, and how she left him, encouraged by her dominating mother, a woman who Susan otherwise detests.

The story which Susan is reading picks up again.  Now an investigating police officer has come into the story and he has his own maverick ideas of sorting out bad people.

Moved and excited by the power of the story, Susan reaches out to Edward so that they might meet again and…….(well you’d be cross with me if i I told you the rest).

This is a really good, compelling story and Tom Ford serves it well. It’s not just the exciting narrative but the look of it: the colours and composition are remarkable. There are a couple of scenes which one could argue are irrelevant and there purely for their visual impact (especially the opening scene), but as he proved with his last film A Single Man, for a fashion designer Tom makes a pretty good Film Director. In this film he proves to be an excellent director. The three main characters are outstanding in their performances: Amy Adams as Susan, Jake Gyllenhaal as Edward/Tom and Michael Shannon as the detective.