{"id":5413,"date":"2017-09-04T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T08:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5413"},"modified":"2017-09-04T10:49:40","modified_gmt":"2017-09-04T08:49:40","slug":"nocturnal-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/5413\/","title":{"rendered":"Nocturnal Animals<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I watched Nocturnal Animals<\/em><\/a>, starring\u00a0Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams. If you haven’t seen it and wish to, you might want to skip this post because\u00a0SPOILERS FOLLOW<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The film concerns the owner of an art gallery (Adams) who’s made a right hash of her life. Severe Mummy and Daddy issues drove her as a young graduate to marry her childhood friend (Gyllenhaal) who’s a budding author but seems to be hopelessly naive about what that entails. For example, he complains his wife criticises his work, into which he’s poured his heart and soul. Well, wait until it hits the shelves pal, then you’ll know what criticism is. After two years of marriage she bins the author for some hot-shot Adonis she works with. The film takes place 19 years later when the Adonis is cheating on her with a younger, prettier woman and her gallery is failing. Cue lots of shots of her sitting in the dark, alone and weeping. The only thing missing was her securing an order for half a dozen cats down at the local pet shop.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think the lesson we’re supposed to take away is that you should always follow your heart and stand by your first true love no matter what. The lesson I actually took away was that spoiled brat women in their twenties acting like stroppy teenagers in dealing with their parents are likely to make catastrophic decisions which will leave them alone and miserable later in life. That’s not really the point of this post, though.<\/p>\n

Instead I’m going to talk about lazy plot devices. Early on in the film Adam’s character receives a manuscript from her ex-husband, who she’s not seen in decades, and reads it. The film then becomes a story within a story, and we see the tale in the manuscript being played out. The idea is that the author’s new novel is so brilliant that his ex-wife will see she made a mistake in dumping him all those years ago.<\/p>\n

The problem is the novel doesn’t seem very good or original. It concerns a man who is run off the road by rednecks (of course) in Texas after which his wife and teenage daughter are raped and murdered. The man survives and seeks revenge. This story has been done a million times already, so I wasn’t persuaded it could induce a change of heart in his ex-wife. What they needed was a really clever story, not a by-the-numbers rape-revenge yarn, but I guess if they came up with one they’d probably just make a film of that rather than use it as a sub-plot in a film about a lonely, ageing woman.<\/p>\n

But my main issue is with what this tweet complains about:<\/p>\n

\n

Sick of seeing scenes in TV and movies where women, (or anyone although it’s largely women), are raped. Unnecessary & unwanted. #SickOfThis<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Alicia Kearns (@aliciakearns) July 29, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n