Nocturnal Animals is not a documentary at Animal Planet, although some of characters have very similar habits to these particular animals. The movie can be described in a single word: disturbing. And when I mean disturbing, it is a positive connotation. Disturbing is good. Art should be disturbing and unsettling at times, in order to shake us from our comfort zones and make us rethink the way we live and how we act.
The story evolves around three main plots, two that are real (one is the present and the other is the past) and a third one that is a novel being read by the main character.
Susan is a art gallery owner with a façade marriage, whose husband has several affairs and is nearly bankrupct. One day, she receives a novel written by her first husband, Edward, and she is soon immersed in the thriller story of Tony Hastings, a man who lost his wife and daughter (both raped and murdered) by three man after the family got trapped in a highway during nightime. As Tony tries to find the murderers and revenge the deaths, Susan reconsiders her life choices and remembers how she married Edward and then brutally left him.
Beautifully designed by Tom Ford, the movie is intense and cannot quite be considered neither a thriller nor a drama, it is somewhere in between and it is a masterpiece itself. The characters are pulsing through the screen and the entire time the spectator feels uncomfortable with the tension that builds up, sort of like how a prey wandering at night must feel while being watched by a nocturnal animal.
Sincerely, it is an amazing film and I highly recommend it. However, I must advise that the movie has over 2 hours and it is very draining, therefore it is not something you watch for mere entertainment.