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Tom Ford tackles revenge, artifice with stylish 'Nocturnal Animals'

Last Updated Nov 14, 2016 at 4:09 pm MDT

Film director Tom Ford arrives on the red carpet for his film "Nocturnal Animals" during the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Sept.11, 2016. Impeccably dressed, meticulously poised and graciously polite, style icon Ford is in many ways just as you'd expect him to be. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO – Impeccably dressed, meticulously poised and graciously polite, style icon Tom Ford is in many ways just as you’d expect him to be.

Bright-eyed and assertive, he offers up a firm, look-you-in-the-eye handshake during a round of media interviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, eager to chat about his second feature on the heels of a triumphant debut in Venice.

On this day back in September, the exacting fashion guru is in his standard attire of a jet black suit and crisp white shirt (unbuttoned halfway). He subtly directs visitors to the chair opposite his lux velvet perch.

And then he frets about the fickle four-year-old son he misses back home, and munches on jelly beans from the bowl at his side.

Tom Ford, the stress-eating dad?

Ford insists he’s not nearly as self-assured as he seems, especially when it came to crafting his violent revenge thriller “Nocturnal Animals.”

“I worked very hard and I beat myself up and tortured myself,” Ford says in a sonorous voice that booms at times.

“As one does when you’re creating something that you care about. You want it to be good and you have to question every single aspect of it.”

Like the film’s characters who are not as they appear, Ford is keen to upend expectations with his quick-rising directing career. This time he’s tackled a melange of genres that play out as a story within a story: an introspective character study, a gothic cowboy caper, a doomed fairy tale romance and a social satire.

Ford adapted the script from Austin Wright’s novel “Tony and Susan.”

Amy Adams stars as Susan, a dissatisfied Los Angeles gallery owner who lives with her rich philandering husband, Hutton, played by Armie Hammer, in a starkly beautiful mansion. Susan’s malaise is exposed when she receives a manuscript from her ex-husband, Edward, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s his first novel, which he’s sent her to review before it’s published.

Dedicated to her, it depicts the brutal tale of a Texas man whose wife and daughter are abducted by a redneck gang during a road trip, and the ensuing investigation led by a chain-smoking cop played by Michael Shannon.

The story elicits memories of Susan’s youthful relationship with Edward when he was a struggling writer, and its collapse when she left him for the wealthy Hutton.

Ford says the story’s many layers of artifice make it “so much bigger and more complex than ‘A Single Man,'” his 2009 debut, which earned a best actor Oscar nomination for star Colin Firth.

And the themes hit very close to home, he adds.

“I’m one of those people contributing to this junk contemporary culture, this culture where: ‘If you buy this you’re gong to be happy,’ ‘If you do this you’re going to be happy,’ ‘If you live this way you’re going to be happy.’ And I’m quite torn about it,” says Ford, whose creative vision at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent made him synonymous with luxury fashion.

“I also grew up in New Mexico in a place where I could see 200 miles and I still go there often and I have a ranch and I get on my horse and I live a totally different life and I’m often conflicted. However, we are material creatures. Velvet feels good. Steak tastes great. So do those jelly beans…. For me, really this story is about finding people in your life that mean something to you and hanging on to them.”

Meanwhile, he relishes film for offering a creative outlet that he says endures much longer than fashion.

“A collection is two or three months and you get to do another one and move on and people forget,” he says. “A film lasts forever, it’s forever. Forever and forever.”

“Nocturnal Animals” opens Friday in Toronto before heading to other cities.