I’M not going to spoil writer/director Tom Ford’s second film adapting Austin Wright’s novel “Tony and Susan” by revealing its dramatic genre. Finding that out delivers a powerful cinematic punch and invites you to consider some interesting aspects of the art of making movies.

Amy Adams plays Susan whom we don’t see until after a very provocative opening sequence. Susan runs an art gallery. Her husband is out of town on one of those business trips that has other reasons beside just business, if you get my drift (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). A parcel arrives at the gallery containing a book written by Edward, the ex-husband whom she divorced two decades previously. Why is she hearing from him after such a long silence?

The rest of the film explains why. There’s a subtle clue on the art gallery’s wall in mid-film. Sneaky clever writing conceals the answer until the very last shot. Susan settles down on the couch with a bottle of Scotch and starts reading.

Husband Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal), wife Susan and dangerously nubile teenaged daughter are driving in the Mercedes along a deserted minor Texan highway to a beach weekend. Three men in the car ahead play a dangerous game that takes about 20 minutes of film time building the dramatic platform on which the rest evolves. Two of them drive away in the Mercedes with Susan and the daughter. The third follows in their car with Tony whom he eventually throws out in the scrub.

Those few lines don’t convey a hint of the horror to which the family has already been subjected. Tony accompanies police detective Bobby (a memorable performance by Michael Shannon) in a search for his family and their young captors. It’s thrilling stuff, brilliantly written and staged with convincing tension.

On the couch, Susan realises that the book’s Tony is Edward. She emails him, what about dinner after all the years. He replies, tell me when and where.

“Nocturnal Animals” depends on some quite horrid elements to avoid becoming simply another potboiler. I waited for it with increasing optimism. I was not disappointed.

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