Fashion designer Tom Ford doesn’t make movies very often, but when he does he makes the world sit up and take notice.

The former creative director at Gucci and YSL’s debut A Single Man won rave reviews and hatfuls of awards nominations when it was released in 2009 and after seven long years he is finally ready to bring out a second.

Nocturnal Animals is a, beautiful, tense, complex movie combining a mournful love story with a violent thriller. As well as creating a film that looks stunning, Ford gleans mesmerising performances from his dazzling cast which includes Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal in the leads alongside Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer.

British star Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the grotesque villain Ray Marcus, driving the story-within-the-story and providing plenty of chills.

Speaking to us on the red carpet at the film’s UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, 26-year-old Taylor-Johnson said: “It is a very disturbing character and it is someone I didn’t really relate to instantly.

“It took time. It was a development with the director, with Tom, and it kind of became a collaboration and it was beautiful. I have never done that before.”

While most directors working on only their second film could still be defining their style, Ford’s is fully focussed and distinctive. And as well as directing the movie, he also wrote the screenplay – an adaptation of Austin Wright’s novel Tony and Susan.

Kick Ass and Avengers star Taylor-Johnson told us: “It is beautifully written. Tom adapted this from a book into a screenplay and I think the dialogue is incredible.

“He is a great filmmaker and he has got a passion for it and a love for it and you can feel his inspirations like Hitchcock, Kubrick and Fellini. He has a beautiful way about him that is able to convey what he wants.

“He is very specific and precise and that is all you need really, someone who can communicate.

“He loves actors and creating characters.”

With its open questions, rich imagery and novel-within-a-film structure, Nocturnal Animals will no doubt be picked apart by film students for years to come. Even Taylor-Johnson’s perspective on it switched between shooting and watching the finished project, and he now sees it - as described by the director - as a cautionary tale about holding on to love.

He said: “I didn’t it as that at first. I saw it as a dark thriller until I watched the movie.

“But that is clearly what he wanted to make and he got that across. It is this beautiful love story.

“She has lost sight of the most important thing that she could have held on to, which is love. This novel is like a dark, visceral way of sharing a heartbreak. It is quite romantic and poetic.”

Nocturnal Animals was showing as part of BFI London Film Festival. It is out nationwide from November 18.

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