
Almost perfect. While it may not even end up in my top five movies of the year, Tom Ford’s (
A Single Man)
Nocturnal Animals was almost perfect. I liked it so much in this movie, and Ford almost created a masterpiece, but it fell short. An A- for sure. Maybe even an A. But it won’t be the 49th movie I’ve seen that would classify as an A+. Jake Gyllenhaal (
Love and Other Drugs, Everest) is better than ever, and he could end up with an Oscar nomination for this film. In a perfect world, he would, especially since he may have been the odd man out in 2015 (
Nightcrawler) and 2016 (
Southpaw) for a Best Actor Academy Award. But with four of the five slots pretty much locked up (Tom Hanks –
Sully, Denzel Washington –
Fences, Casey Affleck –
Manchester by the Sea, Joel Edgerton (
Loving), that leaves only one more nomination between Gyllenhaal, Ryan Gosling (
La La Land), Warren Beatty (
Rules Don’t Apply), and Andrew Garfield (
Hacksaw Ridge). And, honestly, while his performance was excellent, it wasn’t nearly the performance he gave in either
Nightcrawler or
Southpaw. Ford’s chances for a Best Directing nod look even dimmer, and an impressive performance by Amy Adams (
The Fighter, American Hustle) may be overlooked entirely because she will likely receive a nomination (and may even be the frontrunner) for
Arrival, a movie that was released just a week before
Nocturnal Animals.
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