 I'll admit, this is kind of a weird note to start my final run of videos on, but here we are. For my 30th birthday, my girlfriend decided to go big with her gift and get me something nice in the expensive sense of the word. Because I tend to prefer practical things, she wanted it to be an item that I could use daily and probably forever half-joking that if we broke up, it would force me to think about her for the rest of my life. So she went with a belt, a nice belt, one that cost about as much as the t-shirt that I bought and then unbought for that funny video I made about capitalism. But an expensive accessory is different from an expensive t-shirt. It is meant to last, to be worn day after day, and while it obviously has a designer logo as its buckle, it's not so in your face. I mean, if you look at my face, you'll never even see it. We checked out a few dozen options from multiple stores and designers before I ultimately decided on a name that I had never even heard of. One that was distinct but not obnoxious the way a YSL or Alexander McQueen is. I like it a lot. It was a good gift. But one of the brands that I immediately took off the list was Tom Ford. Not because the design was bad, but because the belts were a good $200 higher than literally everything else I was looking at, which makes the t-buckle feel like a secret signal for the upper class. Celebrities and influencers have burned the logos for Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. into our brains. We immediately recognize them and the fact that the person who wears them wants to project a certain sort of wealth. No one that doesn't already know that a Tom Ford belt costs $800 is going to think twice about it. But if they do know, maybe they'll invite you on their yacht or something. I don't know what rich people do. And that isn't to say that Tom Ford doesn't make goofy pieces meant to stand out in whatever space the wearer finds himself in, but even the logo on his $3,000 recycled nylon backpack is hidden in tiny black on black font. It's a lot bit absurd, but a little bit classy. And it's interesting to think about this in context with another of Ford's artistic endeavors, directing movies. There are a handful of such designers who have decided they want more connection to the silver screen than just dressing its stars, though Ford's work is by far the most mainstream of them. This began in 2009 with A Single Man, a self-financed romantic drama led by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, looking suitably stylish in 60s attire. The film received major nominations for its leads, as well as festival awards, proving that this could be more than just a vanity project for Ford. But it would be a while before he would return to the writer-director's chair, eventually adapting the decidedly darker novel Tony and Susan and naming the resulting film after the book within a book where virtually everything interesting happens. Several animal stars more heavy hitters, including Jake Gyllenhaal and Hollywood's other best-known redhead, Amy Adams. So the next one will probably start Jessica Chastain. And though I remember the glowing recommendation from a colleague who would later tell me that Green Book deserved the Oscar, I never got around to watching it and indeed put it out of my mind until last January when, during my month of reviews, Mr. Jolly Huff asked me 23 separate times to review it. This persistence did little at the time since no one seconded the thought, but I appreciated his commitment and promised to eventually take it on. A year later, here we are. And I can't help but wonder why, because now Turtle Animals is fine, I guess. But what about this specific movie would inspire that sort of devotion? Like it's got a memorable opening as various women with excess skin jump and dance around naked while holding sparklers against a black background. It feels like Capital A art, the sort of thing you'd see installed at a trendy gallery, and indeed that's exactly what it is, the latest exhibition by our protagonist Susan, an artist who is unhappily married to possible cannibal Armie Hammer and has her world rocked by the unexpected receipt of a book from and by her ex-husband Edward, played by Gyllenhaal. As Susan reads it, we, the audience, are transported to the world of the novel, an angry, violent one where also Jake Gyllenhaal as protagonist Tony ends up on the wrong side of a group of men in rural Texas who rape and murder his wife and daughter and leave him for dead. He turns to Michael Shannon's gruff sheriff to get justice, and that goes how it goes. And Ford jumps back and forth between those stories throughout the film. In a very broad sense, I can see the appeal of this frame. Susan hasn't talked to Edward in decades, and all of a sudden he sends her a book, this book, which is depicted using the same male lead and whose family resembles Susan and her daughter. The revelation of her daughter's appearance comes in the form of a genuinely unsettling match cut, and I don't know if I commend or condemn Ford for it. What is Edward trying to tell her? And maybe more importantly, what does Susan think she's being told? Obviously this question matters because we keep cutting back to her reactions as she's reading, just in case we were getting too engrossed in the story. And those reactions always feel weirdly heightened. She is clearly not responding to the material itself, but something deeper that we aren't privy to. Little of the dialogue in the real world has anything to do with the book, and unlike the source material, film Susan has no inner monologue. While I haven't read Tony and Susan in its entirety, a lengthy excerpt posted by The Telegraph in 2010 shows how Susan's inner conflict was originally dramatized. And I don't love it. You see, in the film, Susan receives the book out of the blue from Edward with a note saying that it will be releasing soon, and he wants her to be the first one to read it. In the end, you left me with the inspiration that I needed to write from the heart. This is suitably mysterious and gets straight to the point, while the book adds non-drama by having her had a choice in the receipt of a not quite finished story. This goes back to the letter Susan Moreau's first husband, Edward, sent her last September. He had written a book, a novel, and would she like to read it? She was the best critic he ever had, he said. She could help him too, for in spite of its merits, he was afraid the novel lacked something. She would know. She could tell him. It's obnoxious. And where film Susan jumps right in, the book shows trepidation. Yes, she said yes quickly enough, but months go by before she actually opens it. She couldn't believe he merely wanted her to read his book. It must be something personal, a new twist in their dead romance. She wondered what Edward thought was missing in his book. His letter suggested he didn't know, but she wondered if there was a secret message. Susan and Edward, a subtle love song, saying, read this. And when you look for what is missing, find Susan or hate, which seemed more likely, though they got rid of that ages ago, if she was the villain, the missing thing of poison to lick, like Snow White's deep red apple, it would be nice to know how ironic Edward's letter really was. And while the audience is asked to read Susan's expressions, the reader gets a hammer to the fucking face. That's the end of the chapter, and Susan Moreau pauses to reflect. It looks more serious than expected. And she's relieved, glad to see the firmness of the writing, how well Edward has learned his craft of blah, fucking blah, several paragraphs of dumb bullshit. Honestly, I stopped reading at that point. And while I'm glad that Ford didn't try to replicate Wright's mind-numbing blather, relying purely on Adam's performance here was a mistake. Because her face just isn't enough to make me care about Susan's inner conflict. Now, eternal animals arrives at an inflection point for her. She feels restless and her work and her marriage is on the rocks. And now she's thinking about the past and her time with this man who has sent her this book. And I get what I was supposed to feel. And I never felt it. Yeah, the flashbacks to her time with Edward give so much needed context, but it's not enough. And so I was more invested in the goings on in rural Texas than posh LA, but the nocturnal animals portion of nocturnal animals feels like any Southern set rape revenge story. Yeah, it's well shot and acted and whatever, but so what? I don't watch those kinds of movies anymore. When you've seen one, you've really kind of seen all of them. And why even see the one? There needs to be something more to it than that. And what nocturnal animals has is this framing narrative that doesn't really add much. And I ultimately blame Ford's decision not to change the ending, because the film ends as the book did with Susan being stood up when she goes to meet Edward. I can't imagine how annoying the characters in her monologue must be at that point, but I'm sure it is more dramatically satisfying than the film because at least it's something. In the film, we get Adam's growing discomfort, which is compelling in and of itself because she's a great actor, but does nothing for the central mystery, which is why did Edward do this? We don't know. We only ever see him in flashbacks or projections of him in the book. We don't see the real him or the present them, and that's frustrating because there's so much to unpack in that letter. You left me with the inspiration I needed to write from the heart. This is what his heart told him to write. Why? And why did he want her to be the first one to read it? Him standing her up doesn't really tell us anything. I didn't want Edward to like monologue a grand reveal of his master plot, but we need some clues if we are supposed to care and there aren't. Can read that ending a bunch of ways. It was all a sick game and he just wanted to upset her. He wishes that he had fought harder for her but knows that trying to resolve it would only end in more pain. Actually, he did show up and he was watching her the whole time and it was like long shots we see of her in the restaurant or just his sketchy POV. There's no reason to choose any of them. They're all equally plausible. So what are we left with? A visually distinct but ultimately empty piece that I will stop thinking about as soon as the next shiny thing comes along. I guess Tom Ford really brought high fashion to cinema after all. 6.0 out of 10. Thanks so much for watching and thank you particularly to my patrons, my mom, my cat, cat Saracotta, Benjamin Schiff, Anthony Cole, Elliott Fowler, Kojo, Phil Bates, Willow, Iron the Sword, Taylor Lindy's and everyone else. I have four videos left. I think they're gonna be pretty good. I hope that you like them.