This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
One might fault Tom Ford's dark psychological thriller "Nocturnal Animals" for placing style over substance — but the fashion designer-turned-filmmaker applies so much gorgeous style that it's fascinating to watch.
Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) is an L.A. art gallery owner married, not so happily, to a businessman, Hutton (Armie Hammer). When Hutton's away, Susan receives a package: a manuscript for a novel written by her first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal).
Susan finds it's a disturbing thriller about a family man, Tony (also played by Gyllenhaal), on a family road trip when a trio of rednecks (led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) kidnap his wife (Isla Fisher) and teen daughter (Ellie Bamber). As she reads, Susan starts feeling uncomfortable parallels between the novel and her troubled relationship with Edward.
Ford, as director and writer (adapting a novel by Austin Wright), uses clever maneuvers to hide the lurid underbelly of Edward's narrative, which sucks in Susan and the audience in spite of ourselves. The performances by Adams, Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon (as a detective helping Tony find off-the-books justice) make the jarring collision of Susan's polished life and the bloody grimness of Edward's fiction feel like two sides of the same coin.
'Nocturnal Animals'
Opening Wednesday, Nov. 23, at area theaters; rated R for violence, menace, graphic nudity, and language; 117 minutes.