Dreamcatcher9000.You summed this movie up completely. I read some of the posts here and you were totally spot on. This movie was like two completely separate movies, as you stated. The whole large females dancing at the beginning was like a carnival scene and , I am sorry, it was disgusting. I do not care what symbolism was supposed to be communicated, all it did was confuse the hell out of me. The whole revenge date/stand up thing at the end was just flat, ridiculous, and not even shocking. The way Tony/Edward shot himself and diedI laughed out loud at the stupidity of it all. This movie was full of talent and fell flat , sorry is was awful . I could not believe I wasted 2 hours of my life and my money on this convoluted mess.
Much ado about nothing.

Also, the dialogue in the restaurant where Adams's character describes her parents made me puke. It's the reason why Trump became president. The liberal elites keep pushing this disgusting, hypocritical agenda and they don't realise they're the reason why Trump won.
I don't remember the dialogue, can you remind me?

. . . they don't realise they're the reason why Trump won.
#1 Trump didn't win the votes of the majority.
#2 He won the electoral college (maybe?) because there are too many voters who are too ignorant to recognize a severe personality disorder

I agree with everything you said. Also, the dialogue in the restaurant where Adams's character describes her parents made me puke. It's the reason why Trump became president. The liberal elites keep pushing this disgusting, hypocritical agenda and they don't realise they're the reason why Trump won.

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Wow pathetic. You just jealous cause no one agrees with your'Edward has cancer' theory. Here the man just gave the most beautiful explanation one you couldn't even dream of conceiving. Yet you have the audacity to antagonize the man to stoop to your level. Hahaha you have no shame. I hope snobbish trolls like yourself starve to death when imdb shuts down so you won't have any platform to draw attention to yourself.

Edward's purpose in writing his novel is to understand her.
Not really - you don't write fiction to understand another person - especially 20 years after you last saw them. In any case, the novel is all about his own emotions - how their separation felt to HIM - devastation, feelings of impotence, self-recrimination etc. The wife plays a minimal, passive role in the events.

Wow, st dude, I owe you an apology! That was a damn good analysis! Much better than those critics' or any other I read here. You understood the film perfectly. And in my opinion, a good critic can do a good analysis on a film without spoiling (much). Those reviews you sent me were just dimly describing the film's meanings, but what you wrote above is a real thorough dive inside it. After 108 (!!) replies in this thread (the biggest thread in this board!), you managed to answer my question of what did I not get in this film.
Everything you say in your explanation about the ending made me understand it better. Especially when you say:
Edward has, in a sense, helped her to get to this point where her life makes sense and her regret over her actions and who she has become has reached its nadir.
And later on, when you say:
Edward's purpose in writing his novel is to understand her. This is the truth for every (good) writer. What they basically do is to understand the characters they're writing about (whether they're fictional or real persons, or both!).
And also:
'His' when Tony screams at Ray to explain what it felt like to kill them. It's what he wanted to do when standing in the rain and seeing the truth sitting in the car.
It's really funny that you mention this. Because I watched the BAFTA's last night, and they showed the clip from that scene (I think when they announced Gyllenhaal's nomination), and I thought about it. It became clearer to me that it was actually him screaming to Susan. I just didn't get it the first time, sorry!
Andes, the sheriff, is like his guide through trying to understand how it all happened - and like a conscience. The angel and the devil on the shoulders telling you what to do as the horrific truths slowly unravel.
Well, again, st dude, you got it right. Most people were saying that the sheriff dying from cancer was a metaphor for their relationship, which didn't convince me. But, you got it, he was his conscience. If I'm not mistaken, when the sheriff tells to Tony that there's nothing (legal) they can do about those murderers, he brings him the dilemma of what he wants to do with them. Just let it go (angel), or have his revenge (devil)?
He sends her the novel hoping that maybe she can use it to rediscover that person he once found and believed in. Not to come back to him - because he has moved on now - but for herself. It's a beautiful thing to do for someone.
And this alone explains the film 100%. Even if you hadn't told me anything else, you would have bought me with this simple explanation. What you said here is the whole film. I have nothing else to say about it.
And yes, if Edward showed up at the restaurant, it would destroy the film. Not showing up makes much more sense now.
So, ok, mission accomplished. Congrats, you convinced me. I'm not a jerk to deny EVERY opinion told here. It's not why I came here, to ask a question and deny every explanation. I was reading mostly descriptions of the film, I didn't want that, I wanted a real re-interpretation, and you gave it to me (or maybe you used the right words!). That said though, no, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna like the film better now. Understanding it better is different than liking it better. You said: "Now, you can choose to be unmoved by this journey, of course.". No, no one can choose if they're gonna be moved or unmoved by something. It just happens or it doesn't. I still don't have warm feelings about this film. Yes, like I said, Ford's vision became clearer to me now, or actually, YOUR vision made me see clearer the film, because it's possible that Ford has a slightly different point of view than you. Sometimes a viewer can understand a film even better than the director! Sometimes artists don't really know what they do, they're mediators between an inspiration which comes from nowhere, and the making of a painting or a film. And people ask them "what do you want to say with this?", and they respond "I don't really know". And someone pops up and gives their interpretation, and the artist says "damn, you're right, that's what I wanted to say!".
But I didn't come here to ask from people "please make me like this film", I asked a question, and it, eventually, got an answer that convinced me. And that's what was the point of the IMDB message boards, and those idiots are closing them down. Communication, exchanging opinions, points of views. Now IMDB is gonna be an empty, cold place of "dry" INFORMATION, and updates about the latest mindless blockbuster or whatever, and nothing else. The posts about this film here, your opinions, mine, everyone's, are gonna vanish, and this movie's page is gonna be just an empty place of information, without people's opinions. Well, fk you Col Needham.
Anyway, thank you sir (or madame?). Now I'm gonna see "A Single Man".
p.s.: "But you don't have to say anything really, because you won't say anything different that I haven't already read."
Well, okaaay, I feel so embarrassed no

Well, the reviews don't ever go into the exact details of all the strands as not to spoil the story but anyway - my point was that your complaint about the film inspired others to get frustrated with you because you claim to see what Ford was doing then revert to stating things that show you didn't.
So for example. This comment:
How did it destroy her? By not showing up at the restaurant? We didn't see the outcome of this whole story, because Mr. Ford thought it was cool to let us wonder. I'm fine with open endings, but sometimes, they're just cheap ways to escape making a real ending.
Ford did not think it was '
cool
to let us wonder'. The ending is't open at all in the sense that it brings her character full circle. The image of her sitting there, alone, at a table very similar to where we have seen them before, with her 'sad eyes' is the logical conclusion to her journey through understanding her past actions. Edward has, in a sense, helped her to get to this point where her life makes sense and her regret over her actions and who she has become has reached its nadir. Until that moment the story she read seemed to her to be a way for him to make her understand so that she could see him and say sorry and perhaps redeem this horrible thing she did. But by not coming it becomes clear that the story was not about him as much as it was about her. Edward's intention was not reconciliation but catharsis - for him and, once it was finished, for her too. Because clearly he cares about her deeply. Deeply enough to to allow her to read this journey he went on to understand why she did what she did to him. But her reward for understanding him and herself is not forgiveness and reconciliation - it's catharsis and perhaps epiphany. It's a very profound and daring ending. An image that speaks not through words but through image loaded with meaning.
But you don't see this:
But this critic doesn't decode the symbolisms of the film (probably because it doesn't have any), or explain what was the importance of this concept, to make a movie about a guy who has his family kidnapped, raped and killed by some hillbillies, and goes for revenge with the help of a sheriff, within a movie about a guy who supposedly tries to get in touch again with his ex-wife, but for some reason he doesn't appear on their date at the end. I don't see a SIGNIFICANT connection.
No. You don't. And that is your problem in understanding this film. Edward's purpose in writing his novel is to understand her. The confusion and devastation he feels over what she did to him - leaving him and aborting his child - will have lead to him searching his soul for what he did wrong. But when he finds that he didn't really do anything wrong he then tries to comprehend her, what about her made her act so callously towards him when he clearly didn't deserve it. So he creates a scenario that parallels her actions in a world that is gritty and raw and full of real, unavoidable emotions. In this world actions have immediate and brutal consequences and there is nowhere to hide. And in this world he presents her with an emotional journey that is both his and hers. 'Hers' when Tony hides from confronting his wife and daughter's potential killers. 'His' when Tony screams at Ray to explain what it felt like to kill them. It's what he wanted to do when standing in the rain and seeing the truth sitting in the car. Andes, the sheriff, is like his guide through trying to understand how it all happened - and like a conscience. The angel and the devil on the shoulders telling you what to do as the horrific truths slowly unravel.
People have varying interpretations of exactly how the aspects of the story parallel the real journey, which will depend on your experiences of dealing with grief and devastation. But they all lead to the same understanding - that the story is Edward's journey through understanding his grief and her ability to inflict it. He is most definitely not simply trying to 'get in touch with his ex-wife'.
Then this:
Susan COULD have been a very interesting character, if the whole movie was based on her. And the same with Edward, a character that we really never saw except for a few flashbacks, so why the fk should I care about him and his feelings? Who was he?
But the whole film, as I have said above,
is
about her. And your conclusion that because we never meet Edward in the present we don't know him shows that you just didn't understand that the novel shows us exactly who he is. His comments to her, when they are younger - his belief in her, the beauty he sees in her, the hope he has for them and the love he knows they feel - these show us that he believes in emotional truth. His analysis of her in the restaurant shows us that he is attentive, perceptive. 'Don't throw people away'. That is his moral. They found something beautiful. Something worth believing in. But she threw it away and his novel is the process of understanding why that happened and how it felt an

Sundance
I really came here because after watching the film, I thought that I missed something. That I was stupid and that I didn't get what it was about, just like I felt stupid the first time I saw "Mulholland Dr." (which is a quite similar film with this one). But at least the second was much more interesting as a film, no matter what you got from it.
I don't need to read ALL the reviews out there for "Nocturnal Animals" or any film. That was what was good about IMDB's boards, to come here and ask other people about something you didn't get, instead of reading 20 reviews (and still have questions).
I read the first review you attached, the one from The Guardian. I'm sorry, but it doesn't answer the question I have (or rather, had) for this movie. Which is what was so SIGNIFICANT about the parallelism of the fictional Texas story and the real LA story.
And as Susan reads, Ford visualises conjuring a dramatised version of the novel in which Gyllenhaal doubles as self-loathing husband and father, Tony Hastings, while Isla Fisher (whom audiences have long confused with Adams) is very smartly cast as Susans barely disguised stand-in, Laura Hastings. Soon, this fictional world becomes more real than Susans waking-dream existence, with Michael Shannon breathing tangible, rasping life into Detective Andes, an end-of-the-line chain-smoker with a hacking cough and little patience for the niceties of law enforcement. Meanwhile, flashbacks of Susan and Edwards former life (a third story strand) find Laura Linney nearly stealing the show as the conservative mother from hell who taunts Susan about how alike they are, and who prophetically insists that the things you love about [Edward] now are the things youll hate in a few years
Yes, thank you very much, that's what I saw in the movie. But this critic doesn't decode the symbolisms of the film (probably because it doesn't have any), or explain what was the importance of this concept, to make a movie about a guy who has his family kidnapped, raped and killed by some hillbillies, and goes for revenge with the help of a sheriff, within a movie about a guy who supposedly tries to get in touch again with his ex-wife, but for some reason he doesn't appear on their date at the end. I don't see a SIGNIFICANT connection. And as you saw, some other people here didn't either.
Let's go to the NY Times review. This one does a better job:
Theres trouble in paradise: Hutton is unfaithful, distant and on a steep financial downslide. Susan tries to reach out to him, but its impossible, so she keeps turning to the novel instead, escaping in its violence, tension and suspense.
That's a good observation, but it would be better if this book she was reading was a "random" book she found somewhere, and she feels a connection with the writer, and wants to find and meet him after she finishes it. And you could unveil a very interesting story from there. For me, that would be a better story, and it would make much more sense. Don't you agree?
Tom Ford (A Single Man) handles the transitions between Susans story and Tonys smoothly. Some of the shifts are fairly blunt, as Mr. Ford abruptly cuts back and forth between the two stories. Over time, though, as Tonys situation becomes increasingly dire, Susans responses grow more emotionally fraught. Like any invested reader (or moviegoer), she begins to care about this fictional character, to worry and weep. Edward may be a fine writer, but a series of flashbacks to Susans life with him suggests another reason for her tears: Tony looks like Edward.
Again, I saw all these in the movie.
Edwards novel shocks her back to life, only to destroy her.
How did it destroy her? By not showing up at the restaurant? We didn't see the outcome of this whole story, because Mr. Ford thought it was cool to let us wonder. I'm fine with open endings, but sometimes, they're just cheap ways to escape making a real ending.
Susans world, for instance, comes across as far more artificial than Tonys does, with its cruelties, dust and blood. She looks as if she stepped out of a Pedro Almodvar fantasia, while Tony ends up clawing through a Jim Thompson pulp novel (one featuring a great Michael Shannon).
All these are fine observations, but I got them when I saw the movie. I understood the differences between the LA "art" atmosphere and the Texas roughness and all that. But, hoping you will understand what I'm saying, and what this whole thread (which will be gone in a few days) is about, is that, nevertheless of all the above, what I saw was another typical revenge story in the wild west that really, really, said nothing new that we haven't seen. And it was like at least 70% of the whole movie that is called "Nocturnal Animals". So yes, it had some parallelisms with what happened with Edward and Susan. Yes, whatever, the death of Tony's daughter symbolized the death of their unborn child, and the dying sheriff symbolized the death of their long relationship. But I didn't care,

Well, this thread is very entertaining. You keep on attacking various people who explain very clearly and eloquently how the layers of the film work with the same tirade of how the two stories don't mix and that there is no meaning anywhere. Must be infuriating to have an argument with you about anything as it seems you have made up your mind and any kind of insight or fact washes off you in a glorious Trump fashion. I always find that when there is a film that is universally - or at least widely praised by critics then there has got to be something in there that they reacted to. If I don't see it then the chances are that I am the one who missed something - not them. Critics aren't just a bunch of pretentious elitists who attempt to make everyone else feel stupid. Some are, sure, but if you read reviews by established and respected critics you'll find that they tend to give very strong arguments for what they like, citing various entries into the cannon of cinema as their references. Have a read of the below reviews:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/06/nocturnal-animals-review-tom-ford-amy-adams-jake-gyllenhaal
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/movies/nocturnal-animals-review-amy-adams-jake-gyllenhaal.html?_r=0
And you can get a nice slice of this and that here, including negative ones:
https://criticsroundup.com/film/nocturnal-animals/
Something no one enjoys is feeling like your opinion is grounded in something less astute than others. That the reason you didn't like something or that you didn't laugh at a joke was that you didn't get it. It's very embarrassing and demoralising. Clearly, from your various comments on this board, you are unwilling to recognise the layers and the symbolism and the depths that are present in this movie. And it seems that no matter what anyone tells you or how well and concisely they do so you will stick to your insistence that none of the things any of the critics - or Ford himself - have said is true. And the reasons you cite are related to not understanding what Ford was trying to do.
That is why you are getting people annoyed with you and then try, very hard, to explain how this film works. And sometimes they are condescending. That is not to say that you can't dislike this film - of course. Anyone can hate anything they want - but when they go on to a board and write a long tirade about how they hated something and then show, through their analysis, that they didn't understand the thing they were watching then - well, you kind of asked for it.

Thanks, I appreciate it. You know, there is not even one movie in the history of cinema that ALL people like or ALL people hate, someone will dislike a masterpiece like "Citizen Kane" or like a crappy movie like "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" (and I liked it, because it was funny!), so we shouldn't expect from everyone to agree with out opinion about every movie. I mean I liked "Titanic" very much, but I'm totally fine if someone didn't like it and found it an overrated melodramatic blockbuster, and I didn't like the new "Ghostbusters", but I'm totally fine if someone liked it, who am I to tell them if they found it funny or not, but sometimes, I really don't get it. And this movie here is one of these times.

Thank you for the synopsis, last night I walked out around the hour mark. However when I saw how highly rated it was here I thought I was missing something. Apparently not, thank you for the informative review.