Nightmare Alley – Movie Review
150 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan, based on the novel by William Linday Gresham
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
**UPDATE: this post has been updated with audio since we actually got the chance to talk about it.**
**UPDATE #2: You can read some more of Ryan’s input HERE, from his day job.**
Synopsis:
An ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is.
Nightmare Alley doesn’t feel like your typical Guillermo del Toro to me, and that’s saying something. His eclectic tastes and styles are at once unique yet instantly recognizable.
What then to make of Nightmare Alley, his remake of the 1947(?) film based on a novel by William Linday Gresham, a noir-styled, supernatural-esque, con-man-driven spectacle?
It both does and does not feel like a Guillermo del Toro film, and so it’s hard to decide if it’s really one of his films or not.
The opening third of the film can charitably be called deliberate but is more accurately labeled slow. Yes, this segment introduces us to the large supporting cast after providing us with a suitably dark introductory sequence for Cooper’s Stanton “Stan” Carlisle, but often languishes in slow moves through this world del Toro is creating for us.
Finding himself working in a traveling carnival at the invitation of the boss (Willem Dafoe), Stan quickly establishes a father-son type relationship with Pete (played by an again criminally underused David Strathairn) and a somewhat different relationship with Pete’s wife Zeena, who together run a mentalist act using an elaborate system of physical and verbal codes.
The father-son dynamic is key, BTW.
Stan also finds infatuation (love?) with Molly (Rooney Mara), who performs in the carnival as Electra, the electrical girl.
After Pete’s accidental (?) death, Stan convinces Molly to run off with him, and together they use Pete’s system–and Stan’s natural charisma–to establish him as the premiere touring mentalist, raking in the big bucks, guessing what items people have presented to his assistant, Molly.
After a confrontation with Blanchett’s character, a psychiatrist who tries to debunk him during his show (which he successfully, and dramatically, staves off), Stan gets an invitation to do a “spook-show,” the kind of uncertain undertaking which both Pete and Molly had cautioned him to steadfastly avoid.
Using information from Dr. Ritter (Blanchett), Stan gets even more money and renown, including an invitation to use his “psychic abilities” for a dangerous and unstable man named Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins).
Once del Toro gets us into Stan’s increasingly poor personal and professional choices in the late second and early third of the film, things move along quickly.
The ending is never in doubt, nor are the twists, turns, and betrayals along the way.
Stan’s ultimate fate provides a final shot as a twist, as–while his circumstance is never in doubt–his final line provides, depending on how you would like to interpret it, either his ultimate submergence into his own perceived sense of superiority or the final realization of his own character flaws (to put it mildly), and the acceptance of the fate he believes he deserves.
It’s up to you to decide which.
Regardless, del Toro provides a dark and entertaining period piece for us, that’s for sure, with solid performances all around.
Nightmare Alley hits theaters December 17, from Searchlight Pictures.
Nightmare Alley stars Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, and David Strathairn.
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