Tom Ford's previous film, "A Single Man", had a little bit of the "very prettily designed" about it - not surprisingly, as Ford's other career is as a fashion designer. But the combo of Colin Firth's deeply felt performance and Christopher Isherwood's original novel still gave it a depth beyond the pictures, a certain solemnity and basic soul in among the pretty pictures.
"Nocturnal Animals" doesn't quite have that. There's three stories being told here - Plot One is the wraparound, as Amy Adams' gallery owner recieves a book from her ex-husband, Jake Gyllenhall, and starts reading it. Plot Two is the plot of the book, as a husband (Gyllenhall again) finds himself confronted with some brutal rednecks (led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and pursues revenge. Plot three is the flashbacks as we see how Adams and Gyllenhall's marriage fell apart.
The main issue is that two of these plots are pretty shallow. Adams has nothing much to do in Plot One except walk around artsy places in smart clothing and have reaction shots to events in the book (and there are no other sustaining characters in Plot One, everybody else is a cameo). And Plot Three, barring a strong cameo from Laura Linney, doesn't really offer anything much new - it's familiar disintegrating-marriage-by-numbers-stuff. Plot Two is somewhat more interesting, largely because it's got the best use of Taylor-Johnson in ages, and because it also has Michael Shannon in it, playing a slightly unpredictable sherrif who helps out Gyllenhall. But the way that the three plots work together end up turing this into a sad straight man whine about how his ex-wife just didn't appreciate him (despite him not really appearing to have a hell of a lot going for him). It's emotional childishness trying to feel profound and failing rather badly.
So no, I didn't love this.
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