Nightmare Alley (2021) Searchlight/Drama-Thriller RT: 150 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity, language) Director: Guillermo del Toro Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan Music: Nathan Johnson Cinematography: Dan Laustsen Release date: December 17, 2021 (US) Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, Holt McCallany, Clifton Collins Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Beaver, Mark Povinelli. Box Office: $11.3M (US)/$39.6M (World)
Rating: ***
Film noir is a dying art. As a cinephile, this makes me very said. There’s nothing like settling back and watching tales of blackmail, deception and murder unfold in glorious black and white. Who doesn’t love watching Robert Mitchum face off against Kirk Douglas for the affections of Jane Greer in Out of the Past? Or Fred MacMurray being seduced into murder by femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity? What about Kathleen Turner doing the same to William Hurt in Body Heat? Any of these make for great adult nighttime viewing. Excuse me for resorting to a cliché, but they just don’t make them like this anymore.
The filmmakers I admire most are the ones that openly show their love for old school movies like the ones mentioned above. For his first movie since winning Best Picture/Best Director for The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro chose to do Nightmare Alley, the second film adaptation of the 1946 novel by William Lindsay. The first was the 1947 movie by Edmund Goulding. I haven’t yet seen the original, but the new version is a pretty good flick.
Set in the late 30s, the plot follows antihero Stan Carlisle (Cooper, A Star Is Born), a con man who we first meet hiding a body in the floorboards of a house he ultimately burns down. He then hops a bus to parts unknown, eventually ending up at a seedy traveling carnival where he impresses the owner Clem (Dafoe, also currently on screens in Spider-Man: No Way Home) enough that he offers him a permanent job. He ends up hawking for “clairvoyant” Zeena (Collette, Hereditary) and her alcoholic husband Pete (Strathairn, Good Night and Good Luck) who teaches Stan how it’s done. He becomes attracted to Molly (Mara, A Ghost Story), a performer under the protection of hulking carny Bruno (del Toro regular Perlman) who promises Stan five pounds of flesh in the kisser if he hurts her in any way.
Eventually, Stan convinces Molly to leave the carnival with him and get their own thing going. Two years later, they have a successful psychic act going. Performing for the wealthy elite of Chicago, Stan is somewhat thrown when his act is interrupted by Lilith (Blanchett, Blue Jasmine), a psychologist who tries to expose their complicated coding system only to be bested by Stan. In case you haven’t already guessed, she is the movie’s femme fatale. She uses her intelligence and allure to pull him into a scheme to use his psychic abilities to cheat rich, gullible people out of lots of money. As you can guess, no matter what happens, it will not end well for Stan.
Has anybody else noticed how long movies are lately? It seems like they run an average of two and a half hours these days. The long list of recent long movies includes No Time to Die, The Last Duel, Dune, Eternals, King Richard, House of Gucci, West Side Story and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The best of these (e.g. Dune, West Side Story and Spider-Man) don’t feel lengthy. Others do. You can put Nightmare Alley in the latter category. It drags in the middle section. I realize del Toro is defining the relationship between Stan and Lilith, but he could have tightened it up a bit. The film would have benefited from less expository dialogue as well. Was it really necessary to spell out Stan’s issues with his drunkard father? Why not just imply it? On the other hand, it provides context for the murder he commits at the beginning. I suppose it’s necessary to understand the past in order to understand present actions. In any event, the point is the film’s midsection is slow and flabby.
If I had to choose the most prominent defining trait of del Toro’s films, it would have to be the aesthetic. His films look great. Whether set in reality or fantastical worlds, he paints a gorgeous, vivid picture. Nightmare Alley is no exception. He not only gives the audience an authentic recreation of 30s/40s-era America, he also gives us an inside look at the dark world that is carnival life. We’re told in detail how a carnival geek is made and it’s not pretty or pleasant. We also see what happens when said geek is spent. His use of visual symbolism is also spot-on whether it’s the circular motion of the Ferris wheel or the opulent homes of the rich and eccentric. Nightmare Alley is a movie in which the fate of the protagonist is certain as he gets lost in a labyrinth of psychological tunnels and downward spirals. All of it is captured beautifully by cinematographer Dan Laustsen in his fourth collaboration with the director.
The acting in Nightmare Alley is quite good too. What I especially like is the dangerous dynamic between Cooper and Blanchett’s characters. She’s an outstanding femme fatale. She has a Katharine Hepburn-like quality to her. He’s also good as the con man who isn’t as good as he thinks he is as he gets drawn further and further into the web of deceit woven by the manipulative Lilith. The whole cast does a tremendous job including Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) as a potentially dangerous “client” of Stan’s. It’s an impressive cast, that’s for sure.
Besides pacing, I have only one other issue with Nightmare Alley and it’s a debatable one. I think it would been much more effective in black and white. Of course, studios shy away from that because it doesn’t sell to mainstream audiences. BUT Nightmare Alley isn’t what I’d call mainstream. It’s far from it actually. It probably won’t appeal to the masses, but Guillermo del Toro isn’t that kind of filmmaker, is he? He’s at his best with weird movies like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley. I say there’s nothing wrong with that.
