Back in the halcyon days of the Toronto International Film Festival, I enjoyed a stylistically captivating double feature (Nocturnal Animals and Arrival) fueled by a pair of nuanced performances from Amy Adams. In a blog entry, I noted that it took her “stereotype-busting turn in The Fighter” to shock me into recognizing that she was more than a pleasant girl-next-door actress. She proved to be a stunning creature once exposed by the bright and harsh lights.
And that is what fashion designer-turned-filmmaker Tom Ford (A Single Man) exploits in Nocturnal Animals, his elegant adaptation of the novel Tony and Susan, written by the late Austin Wright, a longtime English professor at the University of Cincinnati. The title of the film is actually the name of a manuscript written by Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal), the estranged ex-husband of Susan Morrow (Adams), a coolly detached art gallery owner who occupies a deliciously post-real world. It takes the arrival of the manuscript, dedicated to her, to shake Susan out of her funk.
As she reads, the narrative comes alive in her imagination and right before our eyes. At the center of the novel, Edward Sheffield (also played by Gyllenhaal), a husband and father, mans the wheel with his wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber) as they drive across a desolate Texas highway at night toward a vacation retreat. Along the way, they encounter a roving gang of good old boys, led by a sadistic sociopath named Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who beat and strand Edward, while kidnapping his wife and child. It is a nightmare straight out of the blackest night of the imagination.
Adams anchors the entire affair, starting off in a state of glassy-eyed blindness and then gradually recognizing a horrific reflection of truth, before accepting a measure of unblinking guilt without the showy hysterics that end up begging for awards consideration. (Opens Friday at Esquire Theatre) (R) Grade: A
Also opening this week:
The Eagle Huntress // Miss Sloane //Office Christmas Party
This article appears in Dec 7-14, 2016.
