This Tom Ford movie came out around seven years ago. Based on the 1993 novel ‘Tony and Susan’ by Austin Wright, it will be one of the most interesting movies you will watch. It is stylish take on revenge through art.
The opening sequence of the film shows naked, morbidly obese women in erotic cheerleader attire dancing and jiggling their bodies. The skin is loose and falling and gives the impression of deformity. The artist knows that its ugliness. That’s what she wants to show. It’s the absurdity of our world that is portrayed through art. “Junk culture,” as she calls it. Susan is the contemporary art dealer and her gallery opening puts these bizarre images on display. The plaster casts of their bodies are shown lying lifeless on raised platforms in different positions. Someone called it Tom Ford’s ‘avant-garde gimmicks’. The scene is in direct contrast with Susan’s glamorous life. She is stuck in the slime of society’s standards which makes this scene all the more important because these women are free from it all.
Susan seems to have everything, from an expensive home to a chiselled husband. But under the glossy surface, her life is crumbling. Her husband is cheating on her and the glassdoor life doesn’t seem so perfect to her anymore. This is when she receives a package from her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield. Having been separated for 19 years (as Susan very precisely points out), he has, out of the blue sent her a novel he has written. While opening the package, Susan gets a papercut. If it doesn’t seem like a coincidence, it’s because its not. He has sent her the book to hurt her. The title of the book is ‘Nocturnal Animal’ which was Edward’s nickname for her due to her insomnia. This novel is not sent randomly as a gift to his ex-wife. It is purposefully meant as an act of psychological revenge against Susan, who left him and broke his heart and was critical of his writing. This novel of his will prove that he can write a profound and artistic piece of fiction that is so intertwined with his own life.
His novel starts with the protagonist, Tony Hastings taking a road trip at night with his wife and daughter. During their trip, they encounter one of the worst possible situations one can ever experience. No signal and bad guys chasing after you. In the middle of nowhere, they are met by three road raging hooligans who drive their car off into a ditch.
The narrative keeps shifting as Susan reminisces her own past with Edward. She was rich. He was a poor wanna-be writer. Her mother didn’t want her to marry him but she did anyway. After years, she realised she wanted more which Edward’s dreaminess and lack of ambition did not provide her. So she went to her now husband and divorced Edward. The plot does not directly bear a resemblance to Edward and Susan’s past but it surely has served as a major inspiration for Edward. The movie trusts the viewers to make sense of it.
Edward’s work is so gripping and engaging that Susan cannot let it go. The plot becomes darker and darker. The three guys kidnap Tony’s wife and daughter and eventually rape and murder them. He somehow manages to escape. He wonders why he let them go, mirroring his relationship with Susan and their unborn child. The police investigation goes on and it is after a year that he finally gets his revenge but it comes at deadly cost. All three of the murderers eventually die while Tony dies in a fight with Ray, the leader of the pack.
Edward is never seen in the present throughout the movie. We get to know him through Susan. It also means that the audience never got to hear the other side of the divorce. Although Susan is not an unreliable narrator, her heavy emotions and perceptions dominate the course of the narrative so much so that the line between the real and the fictional world is blurred sometimes.
Edward’s novel is set in rural Texas while Susan’s world is the posh, hypercivilized LA art world. In a Tom Ford directorial, the latter should resonate more however it is the former that comes alive both psychologically and cinematically in this movie.
The background music matches the mood and tone of the novel. It is provoking yet soothing. The movie is visually striking with contemporary artists dominating the screen. Artists like Mark Bradford, John Currin and Alexander Calder appear on the screen.
The film makes some strong statements about gender roles as well. The men in this movie are violent in way or another. From Ray to Andes (the investigator of the case), these men show no remorse while torturing and killing someone. However, Edward seems the most violent of them all. His artistic creation first draws the blood of Susan and then proceeds to kill five of its characters with Tony dying of his own will. Both Edward and Susan are puzzled and tormented souls. Whereas Edward manages to create a masterpiece out of his painful existence, Susan satisfies herself with a passive and self-effacing approach to life.
In all their history, fictional texts have always belonged more to the reader than to the author. The needs, desires, moods and interpreted meanings of a text are the creation of the reader than the creator. The book is dedicated to Susan. It monitors her emotions as much as it does of Edward. It would be wrong to claim that it is only the writer that is responsible for deciphering the meaning and purpose of the text. The reader can invest herself in the work as much as the writer, perhaps even more.
In the end, we see Susan waiting for Edward to arrive. He never does. This was his act of revenge against her. to make her feel what he felt 19 years ago. So does Edward have the last laugh? Susan is at her most vulnerable with her marriage falling apart and the realization of her guilt of leaving Edward. She is in a dream just like Edward was all those years ago. That’s his revenge.
It is a masterpiece of subliminal art. It gets you thinking and talking. It is a movie that will stay with you long after you have watched it. It is frightening, tense, and beautiful to behold. It doesn’t mean it is flawless. The movie does have its weak points with its unlikeable characters and slow-paced narrative. However, the emotional impact it leaves is so intense that it overshadows any breaking point the movie may have had.
Comment your thoughts below.
Leave a Reply