I’ve watched it twice, just to make sure. I’m sure. Nightmare Alley is my favorite film of the year. It will not be everyone’s favorite, but the artistry of director Guillermo del Toro and the to-die-for cast make this an undeniably good watch.
If you have ever seen a Film Noir or read a Pulp novel, there will be fewer twists than for the uninitiated, and still del Toro confidently strides toward a perfect Noir ending (obviously I won’t give any spoilers).
Bradley Cooper plays Stanton Carlile, a charismatic drifter who, after committing a crime in the opening scene, wanders into a carnival where he can be anonymous and on the lam, as well as employed. His character hardly says a single wor4d in the first 15 minutes, as he scopes out what’s what.
Soon he works as a sort of assistant to a Mentalist act performed by a husband and wife team, Toni Collette is the clairvoyant onstage, David Strathairn is the expert in the tricks of the trade who whispers cues to his wife from below the stage. Stan, eager to learn those tricks, becomes a devoted student to Strathairn’s mentoring.
Stan is also drawn to another act who “electrocutes” herself onstage. He has some ideas on how to improve the act, and seemingly falls in love with her, too. She is Molly Cahill (a slightly underused Rooney Mara). Skipping over the details, let’s cut to Stan convincing Molly to join him in creating their own Mentalist act and play the classy hotels, leaving the carnival life.
As always, I stop short of revealing more details. Like the part about carnival geeks. And I haven’t mentioned key roles by Willem Dafoe or the great Richard Jenkins. Mary Steenburgen has one short scene and it’s one of the film’s” holy shit!” moments. This movie is just loaded with great actors in small roles.
Cate Blanchett is the Femme fatale and she’s great at it. She knows just how to hold her head and lower her voice to convince Stan that she’s on the level, while showing us with a wordless expression that the poor bastard is being drawn in.
And Cooper took some early hits from people suggesting he is miscast. Not true. In fact, I can’t think of another current actor who could play both a sophisticated pretty boy, and a character who looks and sounds the way he does later in the film. It’s like singing 3 octaves.
Based on the 1946 novel, and set in the early 1940s, del Toro’s team have constructed a world that is both believable and theatrical, just as he did in the amazing The Shape of Water. My personal criteria for loving films come down to two things: did the film take me away to a place I’ve never been and make me feel like I inhabit it? And: Is this film different from the hundreds of others I watched this calendar year? Yes and yes.
It’s true that you’ve seen many of the fundamental Noir elements before, but you have not seen the universe in which this brilliant film resides.
Nightmare Alley | In Theaters December 17th | 4 out of 4 Stars | rated R
