With last week’s winning pick of Shot Caller, I was hoping that would start a streak of good movies. Unfortunately that streak ended at 1. I had high hopes for Nocturnal Animals but it just didn’t measure up. On the surface, it could have been a good movie.
Amy Adams stars as art gallery owner Susan stuck in an unhappy marriage to “generic wealthy businessman” Hutton (Armie Hammer). She receives a manuscript for a book written by her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). The book, dark and grisly, brings up painful memories of the past and prompts Susan to reevaluate her current life. As a basic plot, that could have made for an interesting and thought-provoking movie. However, simply put, it did not.
We get a story-within-a-story as the movie flips back and forth from present day, to the book being played out on screen, to flashbacks of Susan and Edward’s relationship. The book, title Nocturnal Animals, tells the story of Tony (Gyllenhaal again), his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and their daughter India (Ellie Bamber). Their family trip takes a violent turn when they are confronted on a deserted stretch of road in Texas by three creeps, led by Ray (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Laura and India are raped and murdered and the rest of the book is about the efforts of Tony and local detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) to track down the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
I did like how the movie tried to do something different here, showing the book being played out on screen. But it failed as it resulted in all stakes being taken away; it was fiction inside of fiction. There was nothing to make you care about what happens to the characters in the book. Which is a shame because that’s where the best acting is in the movie. Shannon and Taylor-Johnson both give truly fantastic performances. Gyllenhaal is also much better in the role of Tony than of Edward. And Fisher, though her screen time was limited, is great in the little bit that she’s in the movie.
That brings me to Amy Adams. She was the most disappointing part of the movie, which hurts to write because I’m such a big fan of hers. But the role barely required her to act at all. So much of what she was doing was one of three very boring things: reacting to what she was doing, waking up in bed or in a bath tub, and talking about how little she sleeps. The last part really got me. Susan’s inability to sleep is brought up over and over but there is never any payoff there. It’s simply mentioned as a lazy plot device, nothing more. Further more, her performance was one that just seemed like she was doing nothing more than going through the motions. It was really quite disappointing to see.
There’s not much more to say here. It was a good initial concept combined with a great cast, with nearly every opportunity squandered.
Movie: Nocturnal Animals
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Rated: R for: Violence, graphic nudity, language
My rating: 4/10
Should you see it?: In a word, no. Just read the tag line from the movie’s IMDB page:
A wealthy art gallery owner receives a draft of her ex-husband’s new novel, and once she starts reading it she just cannot put it down.
How boring does that sound? Exactly. And it’s about how the whole goes as well.
Well that’s it for this edition of Matt’s Movie Monday. Hopefully I’ll pick another winner next time around.
