CAPSULE: Nocturnal Animals (2016, Dir. Tom Ford)

It can be taken as read that, with Tom Ford at the helm, there is a ridiculous amount of beauty to be found in Nocturnal Animals. A lot of Jake Gyllenhaal crying in the shower. A lot of Amy Adams reading intensely in bed. A lot of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s wannabe-hillbilly abs. A lot of impeccably designed spaces. A lot of very famous art in those impeccably designed spaces.

It is all desperately beautiful. And desperately hollow.

If Nocturnal Animals is lacking one key element, it is perspective. Adams’ protagonist, Susan Morrow, an exceptionally wealthy gallery owner, is on rocky relationship footing with her impossibly square-jawed husband (Armie Hammer), and pining for the long lost love she shat all over in her past because he didn’t have enough money. Gyllenhaal is Edward Sheffield, the long lost love, who’s not been sitting idle over the years; he’s written a pulpy neo-noir-western and sent it on to Susan to see if he can get a rise out of her. So far, so uninvolving.

To add intensity, Ford flips between scenes of Adams reading, Adams remembering her past love (and her mother, cameoed by a big-haired Laura Linney), and the scenes from Edward’s novel, where Gyllenhaal takes on the second lead (with Isla Fisher as Susan’s cipher). The novel, ‘Nocturnal Animals’ is a viscous terror that seemingly upsets Susan’s world. Ford plays heavy with the literary parallels but with negligible dramatic impact.

Ultimately, a rich woman in danger of becoming slightly less rich while missing an ex-love who she ditched to wallow in wealth, puts too much woe-is-me distance between the film and anyone who lives in the real world (obviously not Ford or any of his cohort). Step out of the dizzying beauty of it all and you’re left with man who’s lashed out with a misogynistic take on inert masculinity because he has struggled to come to terms with being dumped by a woman who was barely worth the effort (and who has the audacity to make choices about her own body).

I’m more than happy to stare at these people. But don’t expect me to care about them. Or Ford’s film.

★★★

Trailer: