![]() Tony Hastings, a refined, cultured family man, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is taking off on a road trip through West Texas with lovely wife ( Isla Fisher) and lovely but typically disaffected teen daughter ( Ellie Bamber). At this point in the meticulously designed and directed film, a seemingly parallel narrative pops up. ![]() Susan soon settles in with Edward’s novel. The assistant, who hasn’t yet made any crucial life choices, has no idea what Susan is talking about. So disturbed that she impulsively reveals herself, indirectly, to one of her many personal assistants, asking that assistant about whether one’s life choices could add up eventually to a single awful mistake. She’s disturbed by the package and the accompanying note. After her opening, Susan gives herself a nasty paper cut opening a package: the manuscript of a first novel by Edward Sheffield, Susan’s first husband. Susan is beautiful, haughty, lives an extravagant lifestyle funded largely, we assume, by her husband Hutton, played with born-into-privilege knowingness by Armie Hammer, and thoroughly, thoroughly miserable. (This review draws on the thoughts and words I had about the film at that September viewing.) The cheerleaders are part of a conceptual art exhibit hosted by Amy Adams' Susan, a gallery-owning high roller in the Los Angeles art world. The twist is, these naked women are, to a one, morbidly obese, sometimes to the point of looking deformed or mutilated, and the shots are, it should be no surprise to learn, in slow motion.Īs I observed when I wrote about the movie in September, from the Venice Film Festival, said images aren’t gratuitous, or-I should have said-without a diegetic rationale. ![]() I’m not going to be coy here-they are shots of a series of naked women festooned with cheerleader regalia, shaking pom-poms and brandishing lit sparklers and such. You can follow Mamamia Entertainment Editor Laura Brodnik on Facebook.I know from reading the responses to the movie when it played at the Toronto Film Festival that some critics were very angry about the film’s opening images, which play over its opening credits. Maybe just treat yourself to some comforting ice-cream afterwards. ![]() Nocturnal Animals is not only a film that deserves to be seen, it deserves to be seen in a cinema, aided by complete darkness and without the distraction of a phone or loved one to offer you relief from the story. I guess some people have no sense of self-preservation.īut please, don't let my post-movie fear turn you away. She agreed with me that it was brilliant but disagreed that it was a one-time deal, vowing to see it again as soon as it was released to the public, with all of her friends and family in tow. When the cinema lights finally flicked back on and I'd taken a few moments to compose myself, I turned to my equally shell-shocked journo buddy and whispered, "That was the best movie I've seen this year. Michael Shannon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Nocturnal Animals. Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal, who has a dual role in the film) is on a late night road trip with his wife and young daughter when they are run off the road by a group of men. When she settles down to read the manuscript, called Nocturnal Animals, the audience is transported into the book alongside her and scene quickly flips from an imposing concrete LA mansion to the dark back-roads of Texas. Nocturnal Animals is partially in the glittering world of Los Angeles and opens on Susan (Amy Adams), an unhappily married and successful gallery owner who receives a manuscript penned by her first husband, even though she has not seen him for years and the relationship ended in a blur of pain and betrayal. But once the movie kicked into action this cheerful atmosphere was quickly replaced with a stifling sense of anxiety and despair. As the audience filed into the cinema there was a heady sense of excitement in the air, with many of us clutching our third glass of complimentary champagne.
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