A grifter working his way up from low-ranking carnival worker to lauded psychic medium matches wits with a psychologist bent on exposing him.
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A drifter joins a carnival and becomes a skilled mentalist in Nightmare Alley. On the run from his past, Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) comes across a travelling carnival and is given work by its proprietor Clem Hoately (Willem Dafoe). Working as part of a psychic act of Zeena (Toni Collette) and Pete Krumbein (David Strathairn), Stan learns the skill of mentalism and how to fool the audience. Stan eventually falls for fellow carnie Molly (Rooney Mara) and they leave together to start their own mentalist act. During one of his shows, Stan crosses paths with psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who offers to help Stan target a very wealthy, yet dangerous mark.
Nightmare Alley noirish drama co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, based on the 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, which was previously adapted as a 1947 film directed by Edmund Goulding. Nightmare Alley introduces us to our protagonist Stan Carlisle in enigmatic fashion, as he is shown setting an apartment on fire. Stan eventually finds himself at a carnival full of a wide variety of freaks and oddities, including strongman Bruno (Ron Perlman) and his diminutive partner The Major (Mark Povinelli). Stan eventually heads off on his solo career as a mentalist and is hired to do a seance for rich recluse Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), which results in Stan straddling the ethical line of his profession.
Having finally achieved Oscar gold with his previous film The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro finds himself elevated to a more prestigious status as a filmmaker, which is reflected in Nightmare Alley, which feels like quite a different type of film for the director. While the film features a number of flourishes that make it still obvious that we are watching a Guillermo del Toro film, mostly during the carnival scenes of the film’s first half, Nightmare Alley is ultimately played as a relatively straight-forward film noir story.
It is obvious that Nightmare Alley is a film that is specifically created as an attempt to repeat the Oscar-winning success of The Shape of Water, though I don’t really see the film receiving much in terms of nominations, except for perhaps production and costume design, which are great as they are in any Guillermo del Toro film. Performance-wise, I give the biggest praise to Cate Blanchett, who is perfectly cast as the film’s femme fatale Lilith Ritter. As for the film’s lead Bradley Cooper, I thought he was fine, but part of me would like to know what, originally cast, Leonardo DiCaprio would have done in the role. Sadly, Rooney Mara ultimately doesn’t have much to do, save for one eloquently shot moment towards the end, and Willem Dafoe makes the most of his relatively brief role in the film’s first act.
While winning an Oscar has given Guillermo del Toro a lot more creative freedom, and I remain hopeful that this means that his long-in-development adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness sees the light of day, I do think that Nightmare Alley ultimately can be seen as a merely OK example of the filmmaker trying too hard to repeat his Oscar glory.
Nightmare Alley opens on Friday, December 17, 2021
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