Tom Ford Returns to Filmmaking with Nocturnal Animals

It’s been more than a half decade since Tom Ford gave us A Single Man, the tale of a gay man mourning his lost lover struggling to move on. Now he’s got a thriller for us, and it stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

Fashion designer Tom Ford returns to the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival with his second feature, Nocturnal Animals. The film also stars Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, and is based on a novel by Austin Wright called “Tony and Susan,” and revolves around an art gallery owner who is haunted by her ex-husband’s novel, a thriller that she interprets as a revenge tale. Ford’s film is billed as a “story inside a story,” in which the first part follows a woman named Susan who receives a mysterious request from the man she divorced some 20 years earlier. She receives a book manuscript, and he wants her opinion of its contents. The remainder follows the storyline of the book, called “Nocturnal Animals,” which deals with a man whose family vacation suddenly takes a series of dark turns. The plot also brings back some haunting memories for Susan, who finds herself revisiting her first marriage and having to grapple with how she dealt with those disturbing events in her past.

Ford’s film is billed as a “story within a story,” in which one pollen follows a woman named Susan who receives a mysterious request from the man she divorced some 20 years earlier. She receives a book manuscript, and he wants her opinion of its contents. The remainder follows the story of the book, called “Nocturnal Animals,” which deals with a man whose family vacation suddenly takes a series of dark turns. The plot also brings back some haunting memories for Susan, who finds herself revisiting her first marriage and having to grapple with how she dealt with those disturbing events in her past. The film is set for a December 9 U.S. premiere.