Review of Nocturnal Animals (2016) by Claire N — 01 Sep 2018

It was beautiful, which was not always a good thing, but soulless, and repulsively misogynistic. At times, it seemed like the film was commenting on its own soullessness and misogyny--Edward was a pathetic, whiny, emotionally abusive character who thought that his controlling nature was acceptable because he was "sensitive" (though also secretly loathed his sensitivity), so of course he wrote a novel about his ex-wife being horribly murdered and thought it was Art--but no, it never drove the point home.

Amy Adams gave a great performance, but her character never actually did anything (because the movie was soulless and misogynistic), so however wonderful and understated her acting was, it couldn't save the movie overall.

It was disappointing, because there were flashes of self-awareness where the film seemed to be shrieking, "I KNOW THIS IS EMPTY, WORTHLESS AESTHETIC!!!!! THAT'S THE POINT!!!!!" but then there never actually was any point.