AMY ADAMS’S STAR TURN IN DARK THRILLER
Don’t let the opening credits of Nocturnal Animals (16) put you off. Tom Ford’s movie has nothing to do with ageing, Divine-lookalike strippers, so might I suggest you make a cup of tea and rejoin the picture when the story begins. You’ll know when that happens because Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) starts reading it. What’s happened is this. The wealthy Susan has had a bust-up with her cheating husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) and been left alone in their vast Los Angeles beach house. So she opens a package that arrived that morning and finds inside the manuscript of a novel by her first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal). The novel – also called Nocturnal Animals – is a Deliverance-style thriller in which an
all-American family – Mom (Isla Fisher), daughter (Ellie Bamber) and Dad (Gyllenhaal again) – are driven off the Texan highway by a bunch of rednecks and, well, I’ll leave you to find out. In between, Ford cuts back to Susan, who’s rethinking her relationship with Sheffield. Yes, he was dirt poor, but was he a better match for her than Hutton? Did she mistreat him? Oughtn’t she meet up with him again? What does all this mean? I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue. But that doesn’t mean the movie’s not worth watching. For one thing, it looks a treat – with fashion designer Ford naturally at home in those Pacific interiors, but proving he also has an eye for landscape in the Texan scenes. For another, Adams’s numbed-out turn is both spectral and sparky. I can’t wait to watch it again. Give it 12 months or so and I dare say I’ll be watching The Accountant (15) again: this Bourne-style Ben Affleck actioner has sequel written all over it. Affleck plays the titular hero, an autistic maths wiz who’s also a martialarts master. He joins forces with fellow number-cruncher Dana (Anna Kendrick) to bring down a shady robotics outfit. It doesn’t add up to much, but, it’s worth sticking with. Don’t go near The Light Between Oceans (12) a Mills & Boony period piece about missing babies that wastes the talents of Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz. Weepie? More sleepy.