In my view, I think the theme of Nocturnal Animals is what Edward says to Susan, "When you love someone, you have to be careful with it, or you might never get it again. ” He wrote a story about Tony's loss of his beloved and sent the sample book to Susan, which is named after Nocturnal Animals, a Susan's nickname given by Edward.
However, Susan is going through a marriage on the rocks, she realizes how much she has hurt Edward. In addition to his current situation, he hopes to make up with Edward. At the end of the film, Susan waits for Edward's appearance in the restaurant, but Edward does not come. This can be regarded as a successful revenge from her ex-husband, or maybe a inevitable result of time. As the theme says, if you do not cherish love, you may never have the chance to redeem it.
There are three stories in the film at the same time, but in general, it can be divided into two. One is the story of the novel: On the road of Texas, Tony, the main character in the story, met a group of bad guy who insulted and killed his wife and daughter.
The other one is that Edward and Susan from meeting each other and understanding to now Susan going through a failed marriage. The two stories have a lot of metaphors to each other, and their main character are both played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Both of Tony and Edward are coward-like ,which I think is the key to link the two stories. Edward wrote the novel. So if it is only for revenge, he should not let Tony be a coward like himself. As the movie saying, every writer writes only his own story. In the novel, Tony loses her love and feels regretful. This part of the story is to tell Susan that you have done irreparable harm to me. On the other hand, Tony is as cowardly as Edward, which is Edward's reflection on himself. He realized that he also has done something wrong. So it can be seen that Edward's purpose is not just revenge,he just wants to tell Susan that he met the right person at the wrong time, and she did not cherish it.
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