Unsettling and tough to watch. The story-telling and performances are excellent and I think they make the topic of the film more palatable to stick with. Jake Gyllenhaal is Tony plays an author and Amy Adams is his ex-wife Susan whom he sends his finally finished novel to read. The film alternates between the actual novel’s horrific events and the life that Tony and Susan once shared. The line between what is real between the couple and what events in the novel are true is blurred as we follow along the nihilistic dissolution of lives in both places and wonder…did this shit actually happen? well, not all of it. Did any of it happen? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.