The second half of my double-feature was the strangely compelling psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals. Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, a successful, but profoundly unhappy, Los Angeles gallery owner. She receives a copy of a novel written by her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) and slowly becomes obsessed with it. This film has a story-within-a-story as the novel is acted out as Susan reads it. In the novel, Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal), along with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber), is hijacked by a gang of thugs, led by Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), on a remote road in the West Texas desert. His wife and daughter are forced into the gang's car and are eventually raped and murdered. Tony works with Lt. Bobby Anders (Michael Shannon) to find the culprits but there is not enough evidence to convict them so they end up meting out their own kind of justice. Because the novel is dedicated to her, Susan believes that Edward wrote it for revenge because she left him for another man and aborted their unborn child. She is also strangely attracted to Edward again but, like the character of Tony, Edward ultimately gets his revenge. This is film-noir at its best with lots of Hitchcockian moments which kept me on the edge of my seat. To be sure, it is quite strange (the opening alone may be off-putting to many) but I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Adams, Gyllenhaal, Shannon, and Taylor-Johnson (who is nominated for a Golden Globe) give outstanding performances and Tom Ford's direction is visually stunning. I highly recommend it (but it is weird).
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