NIGHTMARE ALLEY
****
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Screenwriters: Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan, based on the eponymous novel by William Lindsay Graham.
Principal cast:
Bradley Cooper
Cate Blanchett
Rooney Mara
Toni Collette
Willem Dafoe
Richard Jenkins
Country: USA/Mexico
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 150 mins.
Australian release date: 20 January 2022.
It was Sir Walter Scott who wrote, in 1808, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” He was writing his poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field but he could have been writing the tag line for Nightmare Alley, describing the fiendish actions of its protagonist, Stanton ‘Stan’ Carlisle. It’s the second time that William Lindsay Graham’s gritty novel Nightmare Alley has been visualised. The first was directed by Edmund Goulding in 1947 and starred Tyrone Power in the lead role; this time it’s the work of Academy Award-winning Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, working from a script he co-wrote with his wife Kim Morgan, and the lead is Bradley Cooper. It’s a grim though thoroughly engaging story about a conman who rises from the depths to the heights before sinking into the mire again. It also shows how there are spivs, crims, liars and cheats at every level of society, regardless of a person’s wealth and origins. In short, it’s a classic film-noir story, complete with the requisite femme fatale, and it looks like it really was made in the Forties, so authentic are its production design, art direction, lighting and costuming.
After an eye-catching opening that gives us an insight into the kind of man Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) is, he ups and leaves his family home and runs away to join… you guessed it, the circus. Well, almost. More a travelling carnival show, a sideshow alley in the sticks run by the totally amoral Clem Hoately (Willem Dafoe), replete with mind readers, contortionists, bearded ladies, strong men, an electro-girl and a ‘geek’ considered to be neither man nor beast. Falling in with Madame Zeena (Toni Colette) and her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn) - she tells Stan, “You got panache” - he picks up the tricks to their mentalist trade fairly quickly and decides to set up on his own in the big smoke. He doesn’t want to leave alone, though, because he’s got eyes for electro-girl ‘Molly’ Cahill (Rooney Mara), so he woos her and convinces her to go with him, saying that they’ll make a great act together. Before he departs, Pete gives him one important piece of advice - don’t get into “the spook show,” by which he means don’t con people grieving the death of a loved one, wounded souls who want to contact their deceased relatives. Two years later, ‘The Great Stanton’ is at the top of his game with a highly successful psychic show catering to the elite of New York, when he is confronted by psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who attempts to expose his scam. Carlisle turns the tables on her, however, and belittles her in front of the crowd but the exchange has drawn them together in some primeval way. When he visits her at her office the following day, an unholy alliance is established between them, one that will take them into very dangerous territory.
Nightmare Alley is a ripping yarn, fitting for our times when what is truth and what are lies is a debatable topic of discussion and it is acceptable to claim “alternative facts” when you don’t agree with reality. In the film, we see that the ‘carnies’, although making a living from deceiving people, are at least frank about their dishonesty, whereas the upper echelons fool themselves about who they are, refusing to acknowledge their failings and foibles. The performances of the large cast are uniformly excellent, but Cooper and Blanchett must be singled out. She looks and behaves like she’s been lifted straight out of the 1947 film, so authentic is her delivery and style. Cooper is adept in his role as a man haunted by his past, who knows that he’s no good but who is unable to satisfy his insatiable hunger to claw his way to the top. He’s a man constantly on the run, running from the one thing he can never get away from – himself. It’s a bravura act.
Screenwriters: Guillermo del Toro and Kim Morgan, based on the eponymous novel by William Lindsay Graham.
Principal cast:
Bradley Cooper
Cate Blanchett
Rooney Mara
Toni Collette
Willem Dafoe
Richard Jenkins
Country: USA/Mexico
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 150 mins.
Australian release date: 20 January 2022.
It was Sir Walter Scott who wrote, in 1808, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” He was writing his poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field but he could have been writing the tag line for Nightmare Alley, describing the fiendish actions of its protagonist, Stanton ‘Stan’ Carlisle. It’s the second time that William Lindsay Graham’s gritty novel Nightmare Alley has been visualised. The first was directed by Edmund Goulding in 1947 and starred Tyrone Power in the lead role; this time it’s the work of Academy Award-winning Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, working from a script he co-wrote with his wife Kim Morgan, and the lead is Bradley Cooper. It’s a grim though thoroughly engaging story about a conman who rises from the depths to the heights before sinking into the mire again. It also shows how there are spivs, crims, liars and cheats at every level of society, regardless of a person’s wealth and origins. In short, it’s a classic film-noir story, complete with the requisite femme fatale, and it looks like it really was made in the Forties, so authentic are its production design, art direction, lighting and costuming.
After an eye-catching opening that gives us an insight into the kind of man Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) is, he ups and leaves his family home and runs away to join… you guessed it, the circus. Well, almost. More a travelling carnival show, a sideshow alley in the sticks run by the totally amoral Clem Hoately (Willem Dafoe), replete with mind readers, contortionists, bearded ladies, strong men, an electro-girl and a ‘geek’ considered to be neither man nor beast. Falling in with Madame Zeena (Toni Colette) and her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn) - she tells Stan, “You got panache” - he picks up the tricks to their mentalist trade fairly quickly and decides to set up on his own in the big smoke. He doesn’t want to leave alone, though, because he’s got eyes for electro-girl ‘Molly’ Cahill (Rooney Mara), so he woos her and convinces her to go with him, saying that they’ll make a great act together. Before he departs, Pete gives him one important piece of advice - don’t get into “the spook show,” by which he means don’t con people grieving the death of a loved one, wounded souls who want to contact their deceased relatives. Two years later, ‘The Great Stanton’ is at the top of his game with a highly successful psychic show catering to the elite of New York, when he is confronted by psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who attempts to expose his scam. Carlisle turns the tables on her, however, and belittles her in front of the crowd but the exchange has drawn them together in some primeval way. When he visits her at her office the following day, an unholy alliance is established between them, one that will take them into very dangerous territory.
Nightmare Alley is a ripping yarn, fitting for our times when what is truth and what are lies is a debatable topic of discussion and it is acceptable to claim “alternative facts” when you don’t agree with reality. In the film, we see that the ‘carnies’, although making a living from deceiving people, are at least frank about their dishonesty, whereas the upper echelons fool themselves about who they are, refusing to acknowledge their failings and foibles. The performances of the large cast are uniformly excellent, but Cooper and Blanchett must be singled out. She looks and behaves like she’s been lifted straight out of the 1947 film, so authentic is her delivery and style. Cooper is adept in his role as a man haunted by his past, who knows that he’s no good but who is unable to satisfy his insatiable hunger to claw his way to the top. He’s a man constantly on the run, running from the one thing he can never get away from – himself. It’s a bravura act.