Nightmare Alley review: Guillermo del Toro’s noir shouldn’t go overlooked

Nightmare Alley Named after a dark and wet stretch of Chicago concrete where homeless and needy people seek shelter, the name Chicago Concrete Shelter is derived. These are people who have been brought down by their lives and held there by addiction. They are ripe to be exploited. Because this is America, people are willing to entertain others, even if it’s just to make a good show.

Based on the 1946 novel by William Leslie Graham (and previously adapted in 1947 by director Edmund Goulding and writer Jules Furthman) Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley seems at first to be a departure for one of cinema’s most celebrated lovers of monsters. An Oscar-winner instead of a supernatural dark fairytale, Water ShapeOr his breakthrough film Pan’s Labyrinth, Nightmare AlleyIt is noir straight, an elegant and darkly written work about lying and liars. Its slow drama, which is not as popular as the Marvel film, makes it a less appealing choice than Marvel’s latest movie. However, it still offers a stunning spectacle.

Like the previous two versions of the story, del Toro’s film follows Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a man eager to leave a painful life behind and do grunt work for a traveling carnival, only to discover that he has a knack for the carny life. Stan’s talent develops and he eventually sets his sights on own, starting a successful mentalism show that targets wealthy people. Stan eventually meets Dr. Lilith Ritter, a femme fatale (Cate Blanchett), who is initially skeptical about Carlisle but interested in finding flaws in his act. Soon, they meet and form an unlikely partnership.

Kerry Hayes/20th Century Studios

Nightmare Alley is absolutely sick with foreboding, a gorgeous film of greens and oranges that takes viewers from a twisted carnival to dark city streets to luxurious estates for a story where everyone, everywhere, is eager to deceive themselves — and few more than deceivers like Stan.

The three different versions Nightmare Alley begin and end in the same place: With Stan Carlisle in terrible awe of his carnival’s geek act. An awful tradition and a subject of cinematic horror stretching back to 1932’s notorious film FreaksOne of the freak shows that attracted geeks was “a freakshow attraction” in which men were abused until they became mad and willing to eat chicken heads in exchange for money. Every telling Nightmare AlleyStan Carlisle pities this poor creature, says Stan Carlisle. Stan is the end of each and every one.

Which Nightmare Alley’s horrible power lies is in the long path it takes between its beginning and ending. Stan can quickly learn and is good at crowdwork. He soon builds a new life and works in a field where lies are common. In the film’s first half, Stan is surrounded by people who lie for various reasons, the main difference being how they regard their marks. Zeena Krumbein’s fortune tellers (Toni Collette) and Peter Krumbein’s (David Strathairn) see customers as compassionate, using their talents to educate and entertain. The deceitful moral codes they follow are based on uplifting their customers with positive messages, without attempting to make them believe that miracles can be achieved.

Peter tells Stan, “There is great power in being able to lie to people and manipulate them.” He shares some of his secrets with Stan but hides other. “People are desperate to tell you who they are,” he says, “desperate to be seen.” And few things are more dangerous than a man who tells you what you want to hear.

Most, however, don’t share those values, and see others as suckers and those with the gumption to take em for all their worth. Namely Clem Houtly (Willem Dafoe), who is a carnival-builder and entrepreneur who knows how to make others happy to support him. He believes in finding what people are afraid of and selling it to them. This is why he needs a geek. In the film’s most chilling sequence, Clem tells Stan exactly how a geek is made. This begins with an offer of a drink for addicts or those who have fallen on hard financial times. The drink is spiked with opium in order to keep them hooked. Next, they are offered work. A temporary job to be the new geek while they search for a permanent one. A little lie to make them think they will only be debasing themselves for a little while, when in truth, they’re never going to escape the geek’s cage.

Cooper plays Stan as a selfish cipher. A man who believes in his ability to see through others, but also makes himself invisible, and who is determined to utilize these abilities to his advantage to achieve his goals. For a story about hubris, he’s perfect — a man handsome and capable-seeming, with a long way to fall before being brought so low. His performances are far more memorable because they drift into and out of his orbit. Straitharn’s short, but beautiful, tragic performance is the closest to a moral center. Nightmare Alley has. Clem is pragmatically sinister and Dafoe is his foil. Blanchett, a well-constructed foil ready to meet Stan when he leaves the carney lifestyle and wears a suit in order to get a penthouse suite.

Nightmare Alley is a careful and lavish adaptation of a seminal work where its most interesting dimensions are the ones that emerge when the viewer asks “why tell this story now?” Its script, by del Toro and Kim Morgan, is not didactic nor is it a drastic departure from previous versions. Yet, it is one of the most important studio movies that feels more at this time than any other. Nightmare AlleyThis is an egregious drama about lying and the tricks that get people to believe it. A cycle of exploitation, where privilege and wealth are the only lines that can separate a scammer from a con artist from someone who’s not a genius. Crucially, the film spends very little time in the actual alley from which the movie gets its title, but it’s always there. There are countless Nightmare Alleys all across America, and the moment you think you’re above ending up in one is the moment you’re doomed to be trapped there.