Nocturnal Animals

2016 drama

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A woman reads her ex-husband's novel which turns out to be a real page turner.

"Enjoy the absurdity of our world. It's a lot less painful."

I don't want to sound like a pervert or anything. And I'm not even sure I find Amy Adams all that attractive. But is there a bigger Hollywood tease working today? She seems to be nearly nude in almost every movie she's in, but she never does an actual nude scene.

This started promising with a great display of flabby patriotism--sparklers, pompoms, and obese women more naked on screen than Amy Adams will ever be. The opening score reminded me of Bernard Herrmann, and I settled in for what I expected to be a wonderfully tense drama.

It's not what I got.

This is a story within a story. Amy Adams' character is having marital problems and reads her husband's book. The contents of that book make up the second story. Unfortunately, neither of those stories really deliver. With soap opera dialogue and artificial drama, I never once believed anything I was seeing could actually be real. Things were tense, but they weren't realistically tense. Instead of sitting back and wanting to enjoy the ride, I just kind of wanted to see how things turned out and be done with it. The tone is cynical, the characters are flat, and I never felt engaged.

I did sort of like the performance of Michael Shannon as a preposterous detective named Bobby Andes.