Nightmare Alley ★★★½
IF YOU’RE thinking of watching the original 1947 version of noir thriller Nightmare Alley before the 2021 remake, don’t.
I mean most people aren’t likely to; but if you are, by all accounts it is likely to spoil your enjoyment of Guillermo del Toro’s version which largely follows the same story arc but spends much more time getting there.
Del Toro’s version is very much in keeping with the visual style and approach of his best films – The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth and the Academy-award winning The Shape of Water.
The Mexican auteur knows his way around a simple crowd-pleaser as well and keeps racking up enough box-office credits with the suits to occasionally gain funding for his more, shall we say, independent and idiosyncratic projects.
Nightmare Alley may be a little bloated but it’s still engrossing, entertaining, visually interesting and, as expected from del Toro, occasionally pretty dark and gruesome.
The new script is based on a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham. The original adaptation starred matinee idol Tyrone Power in a slightly different role as a charming grifter working in a carnival clairvoyant show whose lofty ambitions eventually lead to his tragic undoing.
Del Toro’s film is apparently closer to the book in spending more time on the character’s back-story and relationships with female characters.
Bradley Cooper plays Stan Carlisle, a drifter with a mystery past who winds up working as a labourer at a carnival he comes across at the end of his bus route. He eventually works his way up the chain and becomes part of the clairvoyant act run by Madame Zeena (Toni Collette) and her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn).
Stan learns everything he can from the couple while also forming a relationship with ‘electricity girl’ Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara). After a death amongst the workers, Stan and Molly leave for the bright lights of the city with visions of creating a much higher-class act that will bring them fame and fortune.
But this success also brings them into contact with two other mysterious characters psychiatrist Lilith Ritter, played by Cate Blanchett, and dangerous millionaire Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins).
As you can see the film has a packed cast that also includes Willem Dafoe in a pivotal role, Ron Pearlman and Mary Steenburgen.
Noir cinema has a specific look that is already part of del Toro’s toolkit and his cinematographer and designers do a wonderful job of recreating the era and, in particular, the travelling big tent carnivals that have become part of history.
While it may not have the emotional depth of The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley is a clever blend of classic and modern cinema from one of the world’s master film visionaries.