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.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. Nocturnal Animals was thought to be a dark horse, to begin with, but there was a lot of buzz leading up to its release. And, like me, I think many critics will appreciate this movie for what it was while also wondering what could have been. With a critics score of 72% and an audience score of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, it still is a movie that encourages moviegoers to see. But it’s still well short of the 85% critics score, which generally needs to be considered for recognition come awards season.

At this time, Nocturnal Animals is the 33rd movie I saw in 2016. I’d be hard-pressed to name a movie that kept me on the edge of my seat as much as this one did. I felt it wasn’t predictable at all. With 15 minutes to go, I felt the movie could have gone in so many different directions that it would have left me satisfied. While its final minutes weren’t wrapped up in a nice bow, the ending felt warranted and will leave you pondering, both right after the movie and perhaps long after that. [Ironically, the last movie I reviewed was Arrival, and, at the time, I ignorantly said that I wouldn’t think about that movie after seeing it…well, it’s been a week, and I think about this movie all the time…it’s one of the few times where I think I will need to watch the movie again and then, potentially, change my review completely].

Susan Morrow (Adams) is a wealthy and powerful art gallery owner. We meet her in the first scene when she is curating a local exhibit that features several obese naked women posing at a conceptual art exhibit. The women are so obese that they look disabled and disfigured. It’s a disturbing first scene, and you might wonder what you got yourself into. However, I think this scene was meant to grab your attention. It certainly does. And while I’m probably missing something, I don’t think it figured that much into what you see the rest of the moving. However, with that said, I’m sure the opening was more purposeful than I was led to believe. Though successful, Susan seems to be living a miserable life. She is married to the successful Hutton (Armie Hammer – The Birth of a Nation, Call Me By Your Name), and the couple lives in a house so big that they can afford to have their security team). And while she appears to be living a dream life, Susan is miserable. She puts up a front like everything is okay, but the couple is struggling financially, and their marriage is not improving.

A manuscript by Edward Sheffield (Gyllenhaal), her ex-husband, shows up at her house. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Amy and Edward got married very young. While living in Texas, they had been friends and reconnected in New York when Amy was in school at Columbia, and Edward was interviewing there. Amy’s mother (Laura Linney – The Savages, Mystic River) had warned Amy about Edward, drilling it into her brain that the things she loved him for were what she would grow to hate him for. Edward has continually been referred to as weak. Susan constantly defended him as being sensitive and romantic rather than weak, but she seems easily influenced by what others say. Several factors contributed to their divorce and the 19 years of not speaking to one another.

The movie is a back-and-forth between Susan’s life and the story Edward has written and dedicated to her. Couple this with some flashbacks of the relationship between Edward and Susan falling in love, and there is the story. However, the movie centers around Edward’s story. Titled Nocturnal Animals is a name that Edward gave Susan because of her inability to sleep at night. Nocturnal Animals is a story about Tony (played in the movie by Gyllenhaal), a husband and father of a teenage daughter who, on a nighttime trip through Texas, are run off the road by three men, led by Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Godzilla, Albert Nobbs) and relentlessly harassed. I don’t want to say anything here because it will involve spoiling the movie. However, the story is so poignant and well-written that Susan can’t put it down. It almost seems like Edward is letting Susan know just how good his book is after she had ridiculed him earlier in their marriage and called him a dreamer for wanting to work in a bookstore and write novels.

Though I won’t say what happens after Tony, his wife Laura (Isla Fisher – Wedding Crashers, The Lookout), and daughter India after they run off the road, I will say that what unfolds is riveting and heartbreaking. You get so ingrained in the story that the transitions back to Susan in the present time to see her reactions to the story are somewhat frustrating. Though I won’t mention his role specifically, Michael Shannon (Take Shelter, Revolutionary Road) also stars and is just as fabulous as ever.

Gyllenhaal is fantastic as the even-keeled father who is pushed to the extreme in desperate situations. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He is a man who is easily affected by each event that happens in his life. Sure, he is sensitive, but is he weak? That is one of the themes continually brought up throughout this film. I encourage you to see this movie for yourself and watch the development of Gyllenhaal’s character. Unfortunately, his development is one of the reasons that this movie didn’t land in that classic status for me. There was so much more potential in his character. I don’t blame it on the actor as much as I do the script and Ford. Pardon the pun, but the freedom his character could have had was caged in.

Nocturnal Animals is a great movie. If you want a gritty, dark mystery that will keep you involved from its extremely bizarre beginning until its ending, that will leave you thinking. You might be satisfied. You might want something more definitive. If you don’t like endings where everything is cut and dry, you might not be satisfied with how it ends. But I do recommend this movie. If you are a fan of either Gyllenhaal or Adams, this film is a must-watch. Because of how well it’s shot, I’d encourage you to see it in the theater. The score for this film is also highly effective.

***Spoilers***

There are few problems with Nocturnal Animals, but they are just enough to knock it from elite status. First and foremost, Susan’s daughter needed to be much better incorporated if there was supposed to be a comparison between her and India. I don’t even recall there being a mention of a daughter of Susan and Hutton until she calls up Samantha after putting down Edward’s book and calling her in (what we thought) was the middle of the night. And even then, we get a picture of her daughter sleeping in bed with a man’s arms around her, and there is nothing to believe that it isn’t Hutton’s mistress mistakingly thinking his phone was hers and answering it. Samantha had to have been a more significant part of the screenplay, and this storyline most likely got cut in the editing room. But for the story, with all of its symbolism and parallels, to be effective, we needed to see more of Samantha and believe that Susan cared for her daughter in the same way Tony cared for his.

Secondly, Edward/Tony’s character wasn’t developed as strongly as it could have been. He needed to be weak to show that he changed from what we were supposed to perceive as a weak man. Or perhaps we weren’t supposed to believe what everyone else said about Edward and believed he was just romantic and sensitive. But when he admits he should have done more to protect his family, he says he was weak. So, if he was supposed to be weak, make him weak. Or if he was supposed to be a sound man and rational, then don’t have him second guess his decision-making. Instead, Ford should have made Tony feel secure that he was doing the right thing by listening to Ray, Lou, and Turk and not coming out of his hiding place when Lou and Turk called for him. The weaker he had been at the start of the movie and the flashbacks, the more it would have seemed that his character had changed. But, again, it was ambiguous whether he was weak or stronger than others made him out to be. There was an opportunity to present him with either front, which was a missed opportunity.

Thirdly, Susan responds to Hutton cheating on her. While they were putting up a front for their friends to “keep up with the Joneses,” there are emotional feelings that we all have when people we trust hurt us in the most profound ways. So even though we know their relationship wasn’t great, the verification that Hutton was cheating on her with another woman seemed to have little impact on Susan. She didn’t even respond, instead choosing to delve back into Edward’s book.

What did Susan see on Sage’s (Jena Malone – The Messenger, Into the Wild) phone and why? This was the only paranormal part of the movie, and it just didn’t fit. Repeat this element/idea a few times to establish it as a theme. The poster Susan and Sage are standing in front of says, “Revenge.” I feel there were many more subtle clues throughout this film that I failed to see. After finishing this review, I will have to read about all of the parallels.

Finally, the actions of the characters. The sloppy chase scene leads to Laura and India’s abduction. There was far too much that could have gone wrong. There were much easier ways for Ray to get Tony to the side of the road. And, if the goal was to get the two women in one car and Tony in the other, they could have overpowered the weaker trio. A cop car driving by with foul play happening on the side of the road and Tony doing his best to flag the officer down was not needed. I understand that the cop car was in chase of something else, but even if the officer didn’t stop, he indeed would have called the dispatcher to get the situation on the side of the road looked at. There was no need to have that cop car at all. I do understand why Tony was deserted in the middle of the desert only to have Lou and Turk come back for him. I believe that there was never the intent to murder either Laura or India, but Lou didn’t like being told what to do and thus acted impulsively. This resulted in needing to erase Tony permanently. But, even after that, why are any of these men even remotely close to the state of Texas? An even better question…why would Lou return to his home to take a nap after narrowly escaping from Tony and Bobby after Ray is shot dead? If he hadn’t already realized it, Lou certainly would have known at that point that Tony and Bobby were taking the law into their own hands. Yet he naps in the one location where they would look first. Completely irrational.

To a lesser extent, along the same lines, Bobby and the whole police force are involved in this story. Sure, Bobby was dying, which explains some of his irrational and risk-taking actions. With only a year to live and being pushed away from his job, Bobby didn’t want his last case to be unsolved. And taking the law into his own hands was certainly something he could do. But getting other force members to get on board with them to walk away and give the men to Bobby and Tony. Likewise, uncuffing Ray and Lou didn’t seem likely. Nor did Tony’s lack of desire in really wanting to hurt the men who were responsible for killing his wife and child. If I were in the same situation, just killing the men with a gun would be too easy. I would make them suffer. But we all operate differently.

But again, this was not just a story but a story being told within a story (and a work of fiction). I think it’s fair to let some of these things slide. At the same time, I think bringing some of these factors up is essential.

***End of Spoilers***

Plot 9/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 9/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing 8.5/10 (I do love it when flashbacks are incorporated into movies and done so effectively)
Cinematography 9.5/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 9.5/10 (sadly…)
91.5%

A-

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