Texas native Tom Ford's second feature film, Nocturnal Animals, picked up a best supporting actor nod today for Michael Shannon, who portrays a small-town Texas sheriff tangled up in a mystery.
Expectations were high after Ford's 2009 debut film, A Single Man, which surprised many critics. The thinking at the time: Tom Ford, fashion titan, former lord of the house of Gucci, had made a film. What made him think he could do that? It's one thing for a native Texas son to take European fashion by storm, and even start his own company (and name it, in all-caps, TOM FORD). But the movies? That's a different catwalk.
Then that movie came out. It hardly seemed like the work of a first-time director. Visually stylish? No surprise there. But A Single Man was assured in every way, from the flashback structure to the lighting scheme to the deeply felt performances, including Colin Firth's Oscar-nominated turn as a professor grieving his dead lover (Matthew Goode) in 1962 Los Angeles.
Tom Ford, filmmaker, was no fluke or flight of fancy. If it was clear then, it's even clearer with the release of Nocturnal Animals.
No sophomore slump here: The new thriller, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in September, is taut, intricately structured and, yes, gorgeous. Set partly in desolate West Texas, partly in shimmering Los Angeles, it's also got a nasty streak. The art of storytelling, for which Ford, 55, has a gift, is here wielded as a weapon. When a novelist (Jake Gyllenhaal) sends his new work to his ex-wife (Amy Adams), the brutal contents within are designed for revenge, not pleasure.
Ford, born in Austin, raised near Houston and in Santa Fe, has a gift for mixing grit with glamor (though you won't find much of the former in his store at Highland Park Village). He's a natural designer, whether the end product is a gown or a film.
Tom Ford's two films create the impression he's been doing this his whole adult life. He hasn't.
Adams, a five-time Oscar nominee, is hardly a movie newbie. But she was wowed by Ford's command of the film's two story strands — the movie and the novel within the movie — which were shot separately.
"He was so prepared going into this," she says. "So much of what I understood about what he wanted happened in the discussions before we even started filming. He's very meticulous, not so much in his expectations for performers but in the environments in which he places them all. He pays attention to detail. That is for sure."
Ford's two films create the impression he's been doing this his whole adult life. He hasn't. He crashed the Hollywood party late. The industry is all the better for his intrusion. Not to mention a little more stylish.
