In 1993 a novel was published entitled Tony and Susan, written by Austin Wright, where the character of Susan Morrow is surprised to hear that his ex-husband, Edward, sent him a manuscript of his novel, Nocturnal Animals. Twenty-three years later, with the help of director Tom Ford and a star cast, a film with the same name as the novel sent to Susan by her ex-husband Edward is produced. Today I will talk about that movie.

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Year: 2016 Category: Neo-Noir, Psychological Thriller. Director: Tom Ford Cast: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen.

Plot

Fifteen years ago, Susan Morrow left her first husband, Edward Sheffield, a writer who had not managed to publish anything. Now Susan lives in a middle class suburb like a doctor's wife, when she suddenly receives a package containing the manuscript of her ex-husband with her first novel. He writes to her asking her to read the book. As Susan is reading the writing she enters the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a math teacher who takes his family to his summer home in Maine. And as we read with her, we also get lost in the Sheffield thriller.

Opinion

From the beginning we can see a criticism of the consumer society and the trash in which art has become when trying to reflect what we have become. And wrapping everything, a dense, powerful soundtrack of classic thriller. When the show ends, we discover Susan, the creator of the perverse performance, which seems to hide a very great remorse and dissatisfaction.

Susan struggled all her life to escape the influence of her mother, a materialistic and classist woman. While Susan tries to escape the depression and her long insomnia, she receives the first copy of the novel entitled Nocturnal Animals, written by her first husband, Edward Sheffield. The book tells the tragic fate of a husband and wife on a trip through Texas on the way to their vacation in the company of their daughter. The diabolical spin of this story gradually extends into Susan's mood and emotions, taking her back to her repressed past, as she is immediately drawn to the narrative that soon begins to stir her own story with Edward and the pain that caused him the separation.

Nocturnal Animals navigates between criticism of Susan's lifestyle and destructive memories, accompanied by a fabulous sub-plot that belongs to the reading of the novel sent. What gives a fascinating narrative structure to the movie. Sometimes, the drama of Susan's disorders, accompanied by several sequences that make the suspense become an inherent part of the story. However, with an extraordinary montage, both stories have an excellent parallel.

The film also raises the clash between civilization and barbarism, the contrast between an urban society, as rational as it is sinister and a deep society, haunted by ignorance and psychopathy. The film takes us from one to another thanks to the game it poses with parallel realities: there is a "real" fiction, in which the character of Susan lives, and then a fiction within fiction, in the novel written by the ex-husband of the protagonist. Although the distance between one and another is volatilized from the moment in which it is decided that Jake Gyllenhaal interprets both the ex-husband of Susan, named Edward, and the protagonist of the novel written by Edward, named Tony. A direct link on which the film insists through elegant fades.

The film has a cast full of talent and complex characters, led by Amy Adams as never before seen: mature, sad, bitter, lonely, totally dissatisfied with the decisions she made. He lives from the appearances that he criticized as a young man, in the shadows of a past he does not want to remember. We also see an incredible Jake Gyllenhal, which is for me the most important part of the plot. His character is a sea of emotions that may seem insensitive, but that deep inside are eating away feelings that were never in him. Michael Shannon is unrepeatable, his character navigates between the comic, serious and mysterious, is the classic sheriff in a serious and violent story. The rest of the cast is correct, although they are a little misused as Hammer, Laura Linney and Michael Sheen that just appear a few minutes on the screen.

Without a doubt, this is a story told with a neatness and a violent passivity, characters twisted but serious, sad, angry, with pain, human. It's an excellent movie, not because of its unexpected twists, or visually terrifying moments, but because at some point in our lives we've had these feelings, these reasons, these excuses.

Trailer

Score

7/10

This is one of those movies that I want to like more than I really like, as it has many ingredients to be a masterpiece, but also ends up making a series of small mistakes that may be understandable, but that go down a little your rating.