10 Complex Movies You Really Weren't Prepared For
5. Nocturnal Animals
Tom Ford's second directional effort following romantic drama A Single Man couldn't have been more different. Nocturnal Animals, a truly strange, meta-horror/thriller that packs one story inside another, is completely bewildering to sit through, and yet - somehow - it grips you for the length of its runtime.
On the face of it, the film is about a writer, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who sends his latest manuscript to a former lover, played by Amy Adams. Intercut with their interactions, however, we also get to watch an adaptation of the book itself, with Gyllenhaal playing a second role, alongside Isla Fischer, as two parents.
Somehow this two-tale approach works: the tone Ford creates as the events of the manuscript unfold before our eyes is truly disturbing and eerie, especially as Aaron Taylor-Johnson - on maniacally-good form - turns up to terrorise Gyllenhaal and his family. Their first meeting is surely one of cinema's most tense scenes.
How it all connects, exactly, is left up to the viewer, as Ford is purposely vague with the details. What parts of a story have been embellished? Who is to blame?