When Tom Ford reads the novel "Tony and Susan," the writer Austin Wright, the year is 1993. Tom works at Gucci and only one year before being promoted to a creative director of the brand, and for a decade to turn the brand into a cult, but myself in a fashion icon. Still, the tentacles of this story caught his mind, and he began writing a script, patiently waiting for the time to start making movies. And wait. Tom Ford is a lot of things, but one of the main things is that he has learned to persevere. Over 20 years in the fashion industry, 30 years of marriage with journalist Richard Buckley, and the fact that his filmography is just two films is just the beginning. In 2009, Tom debuts with A Single Man, starring Colin Firth and Julian Moore. Firth was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe, so the film certainly did not go unnoticed. "A Single Man" has a lot of admirers, but can not deny his breadth and dose of pretense. Not too irritating, but not quite outrageous. For a person whose attention to detail has made him a millionaire, there is no room for compromise.
Here, in his second movie " Nocturnal Animals," the situation is quite different. The story tells us Susan (Amy Adams), a galleryist in Los Angeles, who has all the material that one can think of, but leads an empty and lonely life. Her husband is always gone and she is walking around sexy dresses and high heels, but nobody sees them. Unexpectedly, she receives the novel " Nocturnal Animals", written by her first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), who sends it to her. She is dedicated to her and she is excited. Dedication is something tempting and eager for the ego. And it contains only one word - your name. What is on the pages is implied with a slight sign, Susan cuts the paper until he unpacks the book. A small drop of blood. Just the beginning. Yes, the details are everywhere. Susan begins to read the novel, and the storyline becomes the second line of the film. It's about Tony, which is played again by Jake Gyllenhaal because Susan imagines him. Tony, his wife, and his daughter are traveling on a desolate highway through Texas at night when another three-man car pushes them out of the way and starts to harass them. The brutality of what happens from these "night predators" makes Susan remind her that Edward has called her a "night predator" because she is not asleep, and so the movie unleashes a third time space with Susan's memories of moments with Edward, everything she has done to him, and a complete reassessment of what her life is and how she has gone.
Every plot dimension has its own style and tone. Susan's life in LA is set in an enormous state of mind that even borders on Grotesque. Baroque, overexposed, with exquisite receptions, absurd works of art, beautiful clothes, good manners, and weird birds (Michael Sheen, Jenna Malone, Andrea Rysaburo). Tom Ford comes from such a world on the glossy surface and shows it in the best way. Take a look at the frames with the inscriptions. They are part of Susan's world. Everything there is - and you do not like it, do not cut your eyes. But in fact, the most appealing universe is the "fictional" - the one in Texas, where Michael Shannon will appear as the local "good cop" Bobby Andes. Jake Gyllenhall is Tony / Edward, who is totally vulnerable and helpless to protect his family against a gang of psychopaths led by Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Gyllenhaal has always shown a cruel flair for roles and this time he has not mistaken himself again. His personality is a challenge, because it is terribly passive, but it builds on it from anger, remorse and sadness. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, known from the movie "Kick-Ass", is a phenomenal antagonist. He himself reveals that it took him about three months to take on a role and so much to get out of it. Tom Ford wants to create a somewhat more authentic villain, not to fully comply with the cliché of the typical redneck, white trash piece of s * it. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson manages to cross all of these limits. He personally did not write his character. Because if something can be distinguished as the weakness of the film is that heroes, prototypes, genre universes and even parts of the dialogue are like fragments of another film borrowed for a little, almost fully embodied in this new thing but not quite . Susan reads the book and begins to realize that Edward tells her, "this is us!" Who is the killer, who is the victim, what are the causes and consequences, who is the night predator and who will be eaten? The director leads us to the responses in a movie he claims to be about the importance of never letting the people you hold when you really found them. Tom Ford's movie is something like a mix of darkness andshine. And that turns out to be a pretty good combination.