COUTURE FILM MAKING
Middle aged, overweight, naked women dancing in slow motion to Abel Korzeniowski’s score “Wayward Sisters”, is how fashion designer, turned film director, turned screenwriter, Tom Ford chooses to start his recent feature, “Nocturnal Animals”. This mix of sound and image is the carriage to Ford’s fantasy world, a true Elizabethan prologue. He proceeds by shifting to an extreme close up of Susan’s tortured, yet impeccably made up gaze, thus the start of this cautionary tale.
Ford’s psychological thriller is a story within a story. Susan, (Amy Adams), a wealthy art gallery owner based in L.A, receives a manuscript written by her ex husband Edward, (Jake Gyllenhaal), dedicated and inspired by her, named “Nocturnal Animals” . As she reads, she begins to reminisce on her past life choices, her miserable marriage and the resemblance between their past breakup and the novel’s dark plot. Therefore portraying three parallel worlds; Susan’s current reality, flashbacks of her past with Edward and the novel itself. Done so with ease and style.
The film’s aesthetic is very Tom Ford; Susan in designer clothes, sleek hair, overly made up, successful career in the arts, yet underscoring with misery. A stylish armour for the fragile character. It’s Adam’s ability to externalize her pain and sense of emptiness, that makes Susan one to empathize with, not to disregard as ungrateful. A challenging task.
On the other hand, Gyllenhaal’s characters, less sleek and chic, go from sensitive young writer seeking creative truth, to desperate father whose wife and daughter were kidnapped from him, raped and murdered, proving his undeniable emotional range as an actor. The carjacking scene, supposedly mostly improvised, is torturous foreplay, to the violence which precedes it. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who plays Sam, the psychopathic gang member, pangs Gyllenhaal throughout the scene, whose realistic human responses heighten the torture. Definitely a memorable few minutes in the film, which seemed to last forever.
The movies scenes are splattered with disturbing metaphors relating the novel and Susan’s past with Edward, with her current reality; from new art pieces in her gallery of “Revenge” to Sam hallucinations to a symbolic necklace. Ford’s specificity intertwining storylines is one of the most alluring qualities of the film.
Why however, does Edward decide to send Susan the manuscript? The similarities between the novel’s character’s situation and Edwards are obvious. The reasons behind it all, not so obvious.The ending is also a brain teaser worth mentioning. Clearly intended to make its audience ponder for days, ruminating on the possible outcomes.
The paradox between the elegance and couture style of Susan’s howbeit artificial world and Edward’s struggle for integrity whilst losing everything, may be drawn by Ford’s own personal experience juggling between the fast paced world of fashion versus that of creative movie making. As said so himself explaining Edward’s novel; “No one ever writes about anyone else but themselves.”
