On Grosvenor Square this November morning gusty winds were whipping the fallen leaves up as high as the top of the surrounding buildings.

At one point a thick ridge of leaves heaped on the ground flowed forward towards me like a mysterious wave, driven by a sudden blast of wind.

Further on in Hyde Park the sun came out for a moment and made the leaves of a tree next to the Serpentine glow a vibrant dazzling yellow.

Leaving Hyde Park I headed towards the V&A Museum.

It’s a striking building with a stunningly beautiful interior.

I’d arranged to meet someone here and we went up to the top floor and worked our way back down through the various rooms, particularly admiring the glass display on Level 4.

But it’s the architecture of the building itself that made the deepest impression; graceful design, successful fusions of different styles and eras, and numerous unexpected views along corridors and down and across stairwells.

After spending just over an hour in the V&A, we headed out and walked along Old Brompton Road for what turned out to be a wonderful late lunch at Beirut Express.

The food in this Lebanese restaurant was terrific.

We had various hot mezza – batata harra and fried vegetables, Maqaneq mini sausages flambéed with butter and lemon,  Samaka harra baked fish, as well as Sambousek lamb deep-fried pastry and a Maroush salad.

This was washed down with an excellent half-bottle of Ksara 2014 Blancs de Blancs wine and a glass of Arak.

The food and drink, the service, and the Arabic music playing in the background, everything was great. Will definitely return here.

Happily fed, we emerged into the now dark street outside.

We walked past the beautiful whitewashed houses near Onslow Square with their elegant pillars and on towards the King’s Road for tonight’s film at Curzon Chelsea cinema.

The film we’d come to see was Nocturnal Animals, directed by Tom Ford.

Ford’s previous film A Single Man was very good, so there were high expectations for this one tonight.

Screen 1 at the Curzon Chelsea is satisfyingly big.

We had seats in row L, about halfway back and fairly central.

From the first few scenes set in the Los Angeles art world it was clear that ‘Nocturnal Animals’ was going to be as beguiling as ‘A Single Man’ – a compellingly constructed world with an unsatisfied protagonist at its heart.

Art gallery owner Susan (Amy Adams) is drifting along in her life, feeling a malaise at her existence and doubting the worth of the work she is doing.

It’s hard to feel much pity for her at this stage – there are worse predicaments to be in than being the owner of a successful art gallery in Los Angeles.

But things take a dramatic turn for the worse when embittered ex-husband Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal) sends Susan the manuscript of a novel he has written.

The novel is violent and has as its victim a thinly disguised version of Susan.

This disturbing act of vengeance by the ex-husband plays out for the remainder of the film.

The to-and-fro between Susan’s current life in Los Angeles and the fictionalised fate concocted for her in her sadistic ex-husband’s novel is highly effective.

You feel a sense of relief each time the action switches from the nightmare of the novel to the more benign reality of Susan’s life in LA.

There are very good performances from the two leads, as well as from Michael Shannon as the reassuringly gruff and uncompromising cop Bobby Andes.

Whilst good-looking throughout, ‘Nocturnal Animals’ does not have quite the visual panache or ambition as ‘A Single Man’.

But it has the same hypnotic aura and bows out with subtle, powerful understatement.

Related Posts: ‘One Summer of Happiness’, Cinemathek, Brussels; ‘Melancholia’, Cinecenter Amsterdam

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