Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney

(9-Great Film)

Gripping. Sordid. Stylized.

Sobering drama mixing real world with fiction once Susan Morrow, a wealthy art gallery owner, guilty of throwing over her first husband, starts reading a manuscript for a novel called Nocturnal Animals. Who’d she get the manuscript from? Her first husband (Gyllenhaal).  The novel follows a meek father/husband who runs into a nightmare on the way to a vacation with his family. They are brutally tormented by Ray Marcus (Taylor-Johnson, perfectly repulsive here) and his cronies, which leads to a memorable revenge narrative assisted by a detective Bobby Andes (Shannon, Oscar-nominated). But there are two narratives in this movie, and they both involve revenge. Director Tom Ford does a magnificent job of interweaving the two.

-Walter Tyrone Howard-

(538)