by guest critic Michael Clark
After over two decades cranking out high-end horror flicks (The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak), Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro hit the mother lode with the 2017 sublime fantasy romance The Shape of Water. Nominated for 13 Academy Awards and the winner of four (including Best Director and Best Picture), Water catapulted del Toro on to the A-list of directors.
Before delving into the story in earnest, it might be good to clarify a few things. Despite what the trailer might insinuate, Nightmare Alley, the director's latest, is not a horror movie, although it is horrific a great deal of the time. It’s also del Toro’s first feature not to include supernatural elements of any kind. He and co-writer Kim Morgan (also his wife) even omit references to organized religion, a primary component to the titular 1946 novel by troubled writer William Lindsay Gresham.
The novel was made into a film a year later, starring Tyrone Power (as lead character Stanton Carlisle) in an effort to willfully shed his nice guy/swashbuckler image. Power and the film itself received generally favorable reviews but it tanked at the box office. Having played a number of unlikable and/or conflicted characters in other movies before (Burnt, Wedding Crashers, Hit & Run, War Dogs, A Star is Born), Cooper has no lightweight/nice guy stereotype to escape from and has everything to gain by breathing new life and immediacy to the bloodless and loathsome Stanton.
Abandoning the traditional three-act narrative format, the filmmakers opt for a prologue and epilogue sandwiching two distinct halves. After an opening salvo foreshadowing Stanton’s utter indifference to everything, he crosses paths with a well-dressed dwarf and follows him to a nearby circus.
In a brilliant bit of narrative shorthand, del Toro trails Stanton as he views each attraction in the show; quickly tabulating in his head the many possible confidence schemes and sleights-of-hand are within his ability to pull off. After talking his way out of a potentially unpleasant encounter with the owner/principal barker (Willem Dafoe), Stanton gets a job working for Zeena (Toni Colette), a mentalist living nearby with the self-destructive, alcoholic Pete (David Strathairn), also her once-mentor.
Stanton is a quick study impressing (but not always winning-over) the skeptical carnies he works with and develops a soft spot for Molly (Rooney Mara), whose power is allowing electricity to pass through her day after day without incident. Understandably slow to warm up to Stanton, Molly has the unwavering protective support of her “Dutch Uncle” Bruno (Ron Perlman), the circus strong man who pretty much hates Stanton.
The first 75 or so minutes spent in the circus are appropriately and convincingly low-rent. With the worn-out tents, bargain-basement props and dozens of hucksters whose freak-show careers found them instead of the other way around, the grease-based make-up paints a Depression-era existence of dead-end lives and broken dreams. Either overcast and/or raining the entire time during what looks like a Midwestern autumn, the air of despondence and resignation is overwhelming.
From aesthetic and storytelling perspectives, the second half is certainly sleeker and more well-appointed; presenting a smaller amount but more sophisticated number of hucksters and marks. Trading in the clouds and rain of Middle America for the perpetual black evening-lit snowfall of Buffalo, del Toro literally goes from wet chill to dry ice.
Stanton now wears a tuxedo and sports a pencil-thin moustache (which only adds to his air of slippery chicanery) with the dutiful Molly providing assistance in the city’s biggest supper club. They’re working off of the notes left behind by Pete and even when it might appear they’ve been found out, Stanton – thoroughly convinced of his own clairvoyance – is able to recover with stunning efficiency and emerges unscathed without expending much effort.
It’s in Buffalo where Stanton meets Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a razor-sharp psychiatrist whose clientele is strictly upper crust. Suggesting a hybrid of Veronica Lake, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford, Blanchett is a woman-out-of-time as Lilith. Platinum blond, arctic and severe, pale with blood-red lipstick and a voice that barely rises above a husky whisper, Lilith is the femme-fatale version of Stanton, only with better breeding and seemingly less greed.
Sitting on a mountain of confidential “doctor/patient” dirt, Lilith presents Stanton with a dream set-up. In exchange for him baring his soul (similar to Hannibal Lector and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs with the genders reversed), she’ll deliver him a target which will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
The final 30 minutes finds del Tor straying (in a good way) from the original source material as it alters the outcomes of two significant supporting characters. In the 1947 version, the studio wanted to “soften” the fallout and did so with an entirely different set of changes to the novel.
While the book and the two films choose different paths in getting there, all essentially reach the same conclusion: preying on people’s weaknesses and their susceptibility to wanting closure delivered by false prophets is not going to ever end well.
This movie isn’t a parable where good overcomes evil. It is the ultimate example of karma payback. The victims might not receive their appropriate redemption but the evil and malevolent perpetrator will be dealt with in a manner far more jarring, judicious and longer lasting than ever imagined – and it is committed by their own hand.
Containing elements of Citizen Kane, The Great Gatsby, and Elmer Gantry, this is the film del Toro has been heading towards his entire career and proves he’s been on the righteous path the entire time.
Nightmare Alley is rated R for strong/bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.
Before delving into the story in earnest, it might be good to clarify a few things. Despite what the trailer might insinuate, Nightmare Alley, the director's latest, is not a horror movie, although it is horrific a great deal of the time. It’s also del Toro’s first feature not to include supernatural elements of any kind. He and co-writer Kim Morgan (also his wife) even omit references to organized religion, a primary component to the titular 1946 novel by troubled writer William Lindsay Gresham.
The novel was made into a film a year later, starring Tyrone Power (as lead character Stanton Carlisle) in an effort to willfully shed his nice guy/swashbuckler image. Power and the film itself received generally favorable reviews but it tanked at the box office. Having played a number of unlikable and/or conflicted characters in other movies before (Burnt, Wedding Crashers, Hit & Run, War Dogs, A Star is Born), Cooper has no lightweight/nice guy stereotype to escape from and has everything to gain by breathing new life and immediacy to the bloodless and loathsome Stanton.
Abandoning the traditional three-act narrative format, the filmmakers opt for a prologue and epilogue sandwiching two distinct halves. After an opening salvo foreshadowing Stanton’s utter indifference to everything, he crosses paths with a well-dressed dwarf and follows him to a nearby circus.
In a brilliant bit of narrative shorthand, del Toro trails Stanton as he views each attraction in the show; quickly tabulating in his head the many possible confidence schemes and sleights-of-hand are within his ability to pull off. After talking his way out of a potentially unpleasant encounter with the owner/principal barker (Willem Dafoe), Stanton gets a job working for Zeena (Toni Colette), a mentalist living nearby with the self-destructive, alcoholic Pete (David Strathairn), also her once-mentor.
Stanton is a quick study impressing (but not always winning-over) the skeptical carnies he works with and develops a soft spot for Molly (Rooney Mara), whose power is allowing electricity to pass through her day after day without incident. Understandably slow to warm up to Stanton, Molly has the unwavering protective support of her “Dutch Uncle” Bruno (Ron Perlman), the circus strong man who pretty much hates Stanton.
The first 75 or so minutes spent in the circus are appropriately and convincingly low-rent. With the worn-out tents, bargain-basement props and dozens of hucksters whose freak-show careers found them instead of the other way around, the grease-based make-up paints a Depression-era existence of dead-end lives and broken dreams. Either overcast and/or raining the entire time during what looks like a Midwestern autumn, the air of despondence and resignation is overwhelming.
From aesthetic and storytelling perspectives, the second half is certainly sleeker and more well-appointed; presenting a smaller amount but more sophisticated number of hucksters and marks. Trading in the clouds and rain of Middle America for the perpetual black evening-lit snowfall of Buffalo, del Toro literally goes from wet chill to dry ice.
Stanton now wears a tuxedo and sports a pencil-thin moustache (which only adds to his air of slippery chicanery) with the dutiful Molly providing assistance in the city’s biggest supper club. They’re working off of the notes left behind by Pete and even when it might appear they’ve been found out, Stanton – thoroughly convinced of his own clairvoyance – is able to recover with stunning efficiency and emerges unscathed without expending much effort.
It’s in Buffalo where Stanton meets Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a razor-sharp psychiatrist whose clientele is strictly upper crust. Suggesting a hybrid of Veronica Lake, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford, Blanchett is a woman-out-of-time as Lilith. Platinum blond, arctic and severe, pale with blood-red lipstick and a voice that barely rises above a husky whisper, Lilith is the femme-fatale version of Stanton, only with better breeding and seemingly less greed.
Sitting on a mountain of confidential “doctor/patient” dirt, Lilith presents Stanton with a dream set-up. In exchange for him baring his soul (similar to Hannibal Lector and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs with the genders reversed), she’ll deliver him a target which will make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
The final 30 minutes finds del Tor straying (in a good way) from the original source material as it alters the outcomes of two significant supporting characters. In the 1947 version, the studio wanted to “soften” the fallout and did so with an entirely different set of changes to the novel.
While the book and the two films choose different paths in getting there, all essentially reach the same conclusion: preying on people’s weaknesses and their susceptibility to wanting closure delivered by false prophets is not going to ever end well.
This movie isn’t a parable where good overcomes evil. It is the ultimate example of karma payback. The victims might not receive their appropriate redemption but the evil and malevolent perpetrator will be dealt with in a manner far more jarring, judicious and longer lasting than ever imagined – and it is committed by their own hand.
Containing elements of Citizen Kane, The Great Gatsby, and Elmer Gantry, this is the film del Toro has been heading towards his entire career and proves he’s been on the righteous path the entire time.
Nightmare Alley is rated R for strong/bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.
Grade: A
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