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Tom Ford (A Single Man) adapts Austin Wright’s novel to the screen, casting Amy Adams as a gallery manager whose writer ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal) pops out of the blue twenty years after she left him to present her with a new manuscript. The film goes back and forth between recreating scenes from the manuscript, a violent piece titled Nocturnal Animals, and Adams’ character’s present life. As the manuscript gets more and more under her skin, Adams’ character begins to re-examine her past and current relationships.

I was excited to see the next film from Tom Ford because I loved A Single Man. At first, the film left me a bit cold — it’s definitely a more cerebral flick interested in form and function than about emotionally engaging its audience in any traditional narrative. But I have to celebrate originality wherever I can find it, and I’ve seen nothing quite like Nocturnal Animals. Gyllenhaal is engaging in the novel recreations (he plays the ex-husband and the main character in the manuscript), so much so that you never really want the film to cut back to Amy Adams’ character. Michael Shannon steals the show as a gruff, quirky cop who helps Gyllenhaal’s character (in the book) get revenge on a gang of thieving rapists who attack his family on the side of a desert road — by far the film’s most tense and affecting sequence. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass) is also memorable as one of the bad guys.

With Armie Hammer, Isla Fisher, Laura Linney, and Michael Sheen.

Oscar Nomination: Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon)