Renowned fashion designer Tom Ford made his directorial debut in 2009 with the production ofA Single Man, which starred Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.A Single Manwas adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel of the same name. Ford would adapt the novelTony and Susanfor his second project in 2016 under the title ofNocturnal Animals.
Both films would be nominated for Academy Awards. Firth earned a nomination for Best Actor in 2010 and Michael Shannon earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 2017.Nocturnal Animalsfeatures an all-star castwith a stunning and rather haunting reminder that the past can always influence the present, no matter how much time has passed.
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The plot of Austin Wright’s 1993 novelTony and Susanlends itself well to Ford’s film adaptation.Nocturnal Animalsis a story within a story that revolves around Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), an owner of an art gallery. At the start of the film, Susan is married to Hutton (Armie Hammer), who seems to have verylittle interest in her passions. The nature of Susan’s relationship with Hutton proves to be drastically different from her relationship with her first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), who sent Susan the manuscript of his first novel. ThroughoutNocturnal Animals, Susan is forced to reflect on her relationship with Edward through the tragic events of Edward’s novel.
Edward’s novel begins with Tony Hastings (also played by Gyllenhaal) in the car with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber). The three are driving through the night on a lonesome road in Texas where they are eventually forced off the road by a car containinga trio of troublemakers. The driver is Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who baits Tony and his family out of the car. Events on the side of the road turn tragic after India and Laura are driven off by two of the men, and the other abandons Tony far off the road.
Susan struggles to ignore some of the novel’s most violent sequences, as they begin to dredge up elements of her past with Edward.Nocturnal Animals, the novel’s title, is a reference toEdward’s own nickname for Susan. After India and Laura’s bodies are discovered by Tony and Detective Bobby Andes (Shannon), Susan immediately calls her own daughter. The film later reveals that Susan was once pregnant with her and Edward’s child, but ultimately chose to get a secret abortion as she begins to pursue a relationship with Hutton. The loss of Susan and their unborn child from his life appear to have made Edward’s novelistic choices an eerie reflection of his and Susan’s own past together.
After the murder of his wife and daughter, Tony spirals into a deep depression as he and Detective Andesembark on a new form of revenge. Along the way, Tony is forced to confront the men responsible for the deaths of his family and how to achieve an adequate form of justice. This leads Susan to confront her own past demons with Edward, as viewers are taken through a series of flashbacks where Susan began to reevaluate the support she harbors for Edward’s writing career. After Susan begins to question the nature of her marriage to Edward, the two have a heated exchange where Edwardleaves her with a haunting line: “When you love someone you have to be careful with it, you might never get it again.”
This line is a massive piece of the film’s ending. As Susan’s current marriage deteriorates, Susan reaches out to Edward after finishing his book and offers to meet him for dinner. She dresses incredibly well, suggesting that her motives here are not to simply give her thoughts on the book. Susan is ultimately surprised, as Edward never shows for their dinner. Instead,Susan is forced to acceptthat what she once had available to her in the past is no longer there. Susan took her previous life with Edward for granted and failed to believe in his own creative process, much like Hutton does to her now. It’s a vicious cycle of dissatisfaction that Susan has caught herself in with virtually no escape.
Edward’s novel ends with an equally tragic image. After Tony is blinded in his confrontation with Ray, he accidentally shoots himself in the abdomen and slowly dies alone. While Susan nor Edward die in by the film’s conclusion, the nature of their relationship is beyond repair. Edward dismisses Susan just as she had several years prior. Edward’s decision to stand Susan up, shifts the power from her hands to his. Susan’s empathy for Tony by the novel’s end force her to realize how poorly she treated Edward bythe end of their relationship. After the unimaginable hardships Tony has suffered throughout the novel, it’s hard not to sympathize with him by the end. On the other hand, it is difficult to feel sympathy for Susan, as the position she has found herself in is due to her own choices that Edward tried to change.
The entire cast ofNocturnal Animalsplays their roles to perfection, only adding to the haunting story within a story. Even in Fisher and Bamber’s limited time on screen, the pure horror and fear their characters feel is impossible not to connect with. Gyllenhaal’s dual performance as Tony and Edward is also beautifully done, as he manages to find just enough in the grief between the characters to connect their stories. Taylor-Johnson is particularly memorable inNocturnal Animals, as his purely evil character is a starkcontrast to his typical roles. No one can ignore Adam’s performance, as she conveys a haunting understanding of the material in Edward’s novel through long looks and lengthy silent shots. Ford’s visual storytelling here is stunning, and its intent leaves a lasting imprint on its viewers.
Nocturnal Animalsis now on Netflix.
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