In addition, most of the events and characters within the “real” world become forgettable when thinking back to the film as a whole – Laura Linney’s and Jena Malone‘s characters, for example, barely seem to have any relevance to the story. The emphasis of Nocturnal Animals, as alluded to in its promotions, is on the character of Susan, brought to life by the wonderfully talented Amy Adams (hot off her spectacular performance in the sci-fi film Arrival). Yet, when comparing the two, her character in Arrival has much more depth and thus provides more of an opportunity for her to shine. Due to Nocturnal Animals’ intense emphasis on the fictional story within the story, Adams’ character is often overshadowed by that far more compelling narrative. Characters of the “Real” and Fictional Worlds As the film progresses, though, this almost exclusive focus causes dissonance amongst the events and characters of the additional narratives. What might have been more effective here would have been to contain longer segments of each story before switching to the other, letting them unfold and connect to each other in a more natural way.Īs it is, the fictional narrative is far more interesting than either of the real ones – though this was almost certainly an intentional move by Ford, since Susan’s changes are made through her thoughtful immersion into the story. By diverting us from one story and thrusting us into another, each comes off as less balanced as a whole, and the ties between them, rather than feeling ambiguous, instead come off as overtly obvious. Such efforts to combine the stories are mostly smooth, yet also occasionally feel jarring and convoluted when repeated attempts are made to combine all three story-lines. The film is presented much like the feeling of getting lost in a good book – everything else around you fades as you become transfixed by the story. Other transitions include one character speaking within the fictional story, who is then glanced at and heard by Susan as if he is actually sitting in front of her. His methods of doing so include some clever camerawork and inventive transitions as an example, showing the fictional Tony Hastings lying in a certain position on a bed, which is then juxtaposed with Susan lying in that exact same manner while she is reading the story. source: Focus FeaturesĪll told, Tom Ford‘s film is incredibly ambitious in its attempts to fuse these three story-lines together. The final story-line consists of flashbacks, with Susan thinking to her past relationship with Edward, including how they met and what eventually happens to lead them to become estranged. The story then progresses through the aftermath of this, which leads to Tony having to face his attackers once again. The story within this manuscript is about a man named Tony Hastings (also played by Gyllenhaal), who, while on a road trip with his family in Texas, is brutally attacked by three miscreants (headed by a suprisingly savage Aaron-Taylor Johnson), leading to tragedy. Upon receiving a manuscript from her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield ( Jake Gyllenhaal) called Nocturnal Animals, she soon finds herself lost within its pages, finding that it parallels her own life. The central plot of Nocturnal Animals concerns a woman named Susan Morrow ( Amy Adams), who works as an art gallery owner in the heart of Los Angeles and is unhappily married to businessman Hutton Morrow ( Armie Hammer). Presented in a lush, hypnotic fashion, the film is one wholly stemming from his unique perspective, though at times it also feels convoluted in an attempt to mesh too many alternating story-lines. In Nocturnal Animals, director Tom Ford‘s sophomoric effort, this device is used to frame the entirety of the film. Here, the character transposes themselves as the lead character of a story – living through that person’s experiences, and by the conclusion learns to approach their own lives in a new manner. The story-within-a-story has long been used in literature and film in order to express the inner turmoil of a protagonist, albeit within an additional fictional narrative.
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