Nocturnal Animals review – Tom Ford’s sumptuous, dark and sexy new movie is quite a thing to behold

TOM FORD’S second film – the first being the sublime, award-winning A Single Man – is all you imagine it to be. Sumptuous, dark, stylish and sexy.

It’s the moving picture version of a beautiful woman walking into the bar at the Soho Grand hotel in Manhattan wearing a Tom Ford dress, doused in Tom Ford perfume and ordering a Dirty Martini before regaling you with a hair-curling story.

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It’s quite a thing to behold.

Based on the Austin Wright novel Tony and Susan, Animals is a story within a story, crammed full of violence, murder, lust and regret.

Amy Adams plays the successful and unsatisfied Susan, who is sent the debut manuscript of a novel by her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal).

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It is a particularly violent and dark thriller, which she struggles to define as either a threat or attempt at revenge.

We see two stories — the “real-life” tale of Susan struggling with an unfaithful husband and unfulfilling yet beautiful life, and the novel’s story: a husband’s despair at the brutal rape and murder of his wife and daughter and the lengths he is willing to go to for revenge.

The end result is deftly handled and crackles and fizzes with tension and sexuality

As the film develops, the parallels between the stories become more apparent. Both sides lose someone they love and struggle to articulate their regret. Ford’s use of narrative and his ability to switch effortlessly between timelines is incredible, cleverly articulating how we read books.

For instance, Gyllenhaal plays both the ex-husband and the widower in his own novel and scenes intercut with eerie similarity. The end result is deftly handled and crackles and fizzes with tension and sexuality.

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Aside from his obvious talent for judging beauty, Ford also has an eye for ugliness — whether that be physical or just the human vileness we know exists behind closed doors.

But his framing and attention to detail is where this film really knocks it out of the park.

Everything on the screen, whether a lamp, a person or a dress, is completely and utterly desirable. This is topped off with a cast on top of their game. Aside from Adams and Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon — here as the gaunt novel detective — has had an absolute blinder of a year.

I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t take away Best Supporting Actor for any of his 2016 efforts.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the evil Ray Marcus is also a bloody delight.

It’s a very tough watch — half shot like a cross between Duel and Deliverance and the other shot like Alfred Hitchcock with a Tom Ford storecard.

You care about the story and characters, and the violence and brooding silence feels uncomfortable.

It keeps you on edge throughout, right down to the Sopranos-like ending which is as abrupt and ambiguous as it should be.

Cracking stuff.

★★★★☆