Review of Nocturnal Animals (2016) by Jeff T — 30 Aug 2017

So the movie draws me in (the romantic) with the picture of the loveless marriage and Susan's doubts about her life choices solidifying into regret. I can identify with this, so when she receives the novel from Tony flipping to the dedication page with her name, I'm immediately ready for this book to be an escape from the her bleak life and reveal their love story.

. and it delivers but in a way that's far more compelling than I expected. I found that even at the end of the movie when Susan is finally corresponding with Tony that I was pulling for her in the green dress with a suble amount of lipstick to reunite with her one true love.

Perhaps I was more easily drawn in than some, but it didn't hit me until she sat alone with that first drink that this movie was not a love story, but a story of revenge. And the packaging of this plot suddenly seemed perfect.

Susan wasn't the victim of bad life choices, she was actually the villian. The clever element that threw me off the scent of this was the phone call to her daughter made in reaction to the novel's horrific opening.

But when it is later revealed that she aborted she and Tony's unborn child we assume that her living daughter is actually from her current marriage. Suddenly the thought of Tony standing outside of the abortion clinic helpless to do anything in parallell with the car jacking sequence.

. heart breaking and brilliant. It was my reflection upon the many parallells of the two stories that only seemed apparent to me after the credits rolled that made this movie so satisfying. And as for the romantic in me, I couldn't have chosen a better ending than Susan sitting alone.