Nocturnal Animals is a 2016 American neo-noir psychological thriller[6][7] film written, produced, and directed by Tom Ford in his second feature, based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright.
Upset by her deteriorating marriage to unfaithful businessman Hutton Morrow, Susan becomes consumed by the novel, which is dedicated to her and named Nocturnal Animals after Edward's nickname for her.
In this novel, Tony Hastings is a family man who runs afoul of three local troublemakers – Ray Marcus, Lou, and Turk – during a road trip through West Texas.
Detective Roberto "Bobby" Andes is assigned to the case and with Tony, discovers the bodies of Laura and India near an abandoned shack, where they had been raped and murdered.
He is contacted by Andes a year later and is asked to identify Lou, who was caught in a botched robbery and is charged as an accomplice in Laura and India's murders.
After finding further evidence of Hutton's extramarital affair, Susan resumes her reading of the manuscript and begins to recall her troubled marriage to Edward, which was strained by her frustration with his fledgling career and her dismissive attitude towards his literary aspirations.
On March 24, 2015, it was announced that Smokehouse Pictures' partners George Clooney and Grant Heslov would produce a thriller, Nocturnal Animals, based on Austin Wright's 1993 novel Tony and Susan.
However, the central themes are the same, meaning that when I read the book, what appealed to me as a writer and a filmmaker was the idea of this device of communicating to someone through a work of fiction.
[16] On August 28, 2015, Armie Hammer also joined the cast of the film, to play Hutton Morrow, Adams' character's husband.
[27] Nocturnal Animals had its world premiere at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2016,[28][29][8] where it won the Grand Jury Prize.
The website's consensus reads: "Well-acted and lovely to look at, Nocturnal Animals further underscores writer-director Tom Ford's distinctive visual and narrative skill.
[36] Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood praised Adams, Gyllenhaal, Shannon, and Taylor-Johnson's performances, as well as Ford's screenplay and direction.
[37] Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent awarded the film five stars, praising the performances and the direction, and stating, "Nocturnal Animals is extraordinarily deft in the way it combines romanticism and bleakness.
"[38] Leonard Maltin wrote very positively of the film: "At one time it was normal to tell a story from beginning to end; now, juggling a movie's timeline has almost become a cliché.
Cheers to cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, composer Abel Korzeniowski and especially editor Joan Sobel who help Ford weave multiple stories into one darkly funny, visually dazzling piece."
And Adams takes Susan from dewy college girl to hardened ice queen without missing a stop or a nuance in between.
"[40] Victoria Coren Mitchell of The Guardian opposed the popular critical opinion, saying "Why all these raves and prizes for a piece of gynophobic death-porn?