Nocturnal Animals is an interesting and even fascinating but bleak and dark indie film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Michael Shannon, Isla Fisher, and Armie Hammer. So it’s a great cast in a very good and certainly unique film.
Basic premise is that wealthy Amy Adams is in a failing marriage with Armie Hammer when she receives a copy of her first husband’s new novel (titled Nocturnal Animals). She reads the manuscript which is then shown to us as a movie within the movie… and then it flashes back to her reaction to it and her memories of meeting, falling in and then out of love with her ex. It’s a convoluted but expertly crafted set of nesting doll story telling, mixing events from each layer of its story expertly. You don’t always know where you are in the narrative (in a good way) and draws parallels, both visual and narratively, between them.
The story-in-a-story would be a perfectly good crime / revenge pot-boiler if it was its own movie. A sordid, dark bit of viscous cinema about a family on a road trip in west Texas who are accosted by good ol’ boys… and the revenge that is taken. Michael Shannon plays a Texas Ranger in this sequence and he’s a-maze-ing. Gyllenahll plays the father of the family and pulls double-duty as Amy Adams’ “real world” ex husband and he’s good too. Aaron Taylor Johnson is pretty incredible as the lead bad guy, putting on a curiously different take on a dirt-poor thug. I didn’t recognize him through the whole movie.
The film flashes back and forth, as noted, between the book and the real world and the real world is less interesting but more emotionally cold and sterile. You get the impression this story of Texas justice has something to do with the real world’s divorced coupon drama but putting it together is largely your job as a viewer. The movie doesn’t make it easy putting the puzzle pieces together and I’ve gotten more out of the movie the more I’ve thought about it afterwords. It’s certainly true they could have just told the Texas story as a stand-alone, but the movie wouldn’t have an extra layer without the frame story.
That said, some people might not “get” the frame story or at least feel satisfied with the ending. I know I had an “awww… is that it?” moment immediately following the end but that’s where the complexity of the structure and the no easy answers kicks in. But if you are looking for closure and really aren’t into analyzing film, this movie may seem kind of pointless… at least part of it and certainly the end.
But I liked it a lot. It’s got a lot of great actors doing a lot of great acting. It looks amazing, it’s editing smart, and it’s a thoughtful, curious, challenging movie.
Score: 89