Review of Nocturnal Animals (2016) by Matt G — 16 Dec 2016

Nocturnal Animals opens with a montage of overweight women dancing naked in slo-mo. It's certainly not something you see everyday, and sets the tone for a movie that always feels like it has something sinister hiding beneath its skin. Like a more naturalistic Mulholland Drive, it's a Lynchian mystery about the effects of fiction on our lives, in which nothing would be strange enough to be out of the realm of possibility. It's admittedly opaque and borderline pretentious, yet still it's difficult not to be completely sucked in by the painful artistry and baffling intrigue on display.

It's basically two movies: one follows Adams character as she navigates the high-society art world, and the other exists within a violent novel she is reading written by her ex-husband (Gyllenhaal). The real world is glossy and full of restrained rich-people and their problems. The book is grimy, tense and infuriating, an intentionally melo-dramatic and overacted murder-tale that is scary & unbelievably engaging.

Other than Gyllenhaal, who I think struggles with the tonal balance, the performances are largely very good, with Taylor-Johnson and Shannon standing out. Each gives a bold turns within the novel universe outside of how we normally see from them.

Director Ford takes a sharp approach to the film, especially the editing. Never sign-posting the transitions between the two worlds, he combines the southern-gothic thrills & supremely dark psychology, effectively put off our guard as the veil we keep between the realms of reality and fiction thins. It's an unwieldy tale, to be sure, and I'm curious to see if my love for it sustains. Either way, it's a pulpy, surrealist anomaly that is more than worth the look.