"Do You Ever Feel You're Life Has Turned Into Something You Never Intended..?"
With only his second feature after A Single Man, designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford returns to the cinematic spectrum this month with Nocturnal Animals, a gripping, white-knuckle thriller featuring a stellar cast on top of their form and a film which not only develops the reputation of Ford as an intelligent and sophisticated filmmaker but a film which resonates with you long after you arise from your sweat-covered seat and leave the cinema. Not only is Nocturnal Animals one of the most original films of the year, it is undoubtedly one of the toughest thrillers I can remember seeing in a long time, producing scene after scene of unbearable tension all the while mixing between a wide range of genres in an effective and unashamedly top-notch fashion. With an unbelievable bunch of A-List stars such as Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal and the always brilliant Michael Shannon at the film's core, Nocturnal Animals is an essential movie for anyone tough enough to withstand its' scorching sense of nihilistic suffering.
After receiving the first print of former husband's latest novel "Nocturnal Animals", fashion designer Susan Morrow (Adams) begins to delve deep into the dark and twisted story that her former lover has created, all-the-while reminiscing not only her own, personal life struggles but the way in which her relationship with former husband Edward Sheffield (Gyllenhaal) came to an end. Mixing in a somewhat Lynchian nihilism to developments as well as a wide range of thrilling yet hard-going set pieces, reminiscent of films such as Lynch's Blue Velvet and even films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in terms of the film's relentless darkness, Nocturnal Animals will indeed not be for everyone, yet much like Winding Refn's The Neon Demon earlier this year, some will revel in its' extreme genre crossing boundaries; myself included. Whilst the film's rather off-kilter and entirely misjudged opening title sequence prevents the movie from being anything close to perfection, Nocturnal Animals is one of the most refreshing and original movies of the year.
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