Ever since I saw the trailer for Nightmare Alley, I’ve been obsessed with the movie. Not just because I’m a huge Del Tor fan. Not just because I love all movies set in circuses. Not just because it has a just about perfect cast. But there was something about it, that grand sweeping quality, that power the cinema has to take you away from the quotidian blandness, from normal life.
And now I finally watched it. And now I think I might be kind of disappointed. But really, I need to process my feelings and this review is meant to help me do that. How can I be disappointed? I’ve never been disappointed by a Del Toro production before. The man’s work just doesn’t have that setting. It’s always dazzling, always spectacular, always spectacularly dazzlingly moving and poignant. What’s missing here? Nightmare Alley is an adaptation of a classic noir novel from the 40s. This is Del Toro’s most Americana production, by far his most grounded in reality one, albeit a distant WWII era reality. The story is pure Americana too. A quick rise and a meteoric fall of a man. A classic arc of a classic protagonist. A surefire straight-forward interpretation of the American dream. Get money or die trying. For in a civilized American society money equals power and respect above all else. Not so in the circus society, which is the very fringe version of a real world. There it’s all about family, camaraderie, etc. It’s where the story’s protagonist, Stan, first ends up after walking away very dramatically from a building on fire – and that’s just the opening scene. In the circus, Stan finds himself, finds work, finds some sense of worth among people who do not ask too many questions. He gets in tight with the show’s fortunetellers, the Krumbeins ,played by the incomparable Toni Colette and her alcoholic mastermind husband David Strathairn. Collette’s Madame Zeena is all too quick to jump Stan’s studly bones. I mean, it’s Bradley Cooper, people, you can’t blame her. She subsequently declares him good for business, and thus he proceeds to hang around the couple and learning the tricks of their trade. He also doesn’t waste too much time upgrading from Zeena to the much younger Molly - Rooney Mara who gets shot through with electricity for her act and other than that has lamentably almost nothing to do but look the innocent ingenue that she is. An act she’s perfectly good at since she seems to be refusing to age and in her mid 30s easier passes for someone a decade younger. Fast-forward a couple of years and Stan is thriving. He has perfected the Krumbein’s mentalist act having inherited his secret black book and now Stan and Molly have a successful lounge act all of their own. Enter Lilith Ritter. A woman so vampy that her name is Lilith. Played to juicy perfection by Cate Blanchett, who embodies all the grace and pizzazz of classic movie vamps of a bygone era from demeanor to voice. Perfect. Needless to say, Stan is very taken up by her, she challenges him, threatens him, pushes him in a way that lovely meek Molly wouldn’t dream off. And thus, Stan pushes himself for grander and grander cons, letting his ambition stretch his talent into unsupportable lengths. Stan gets involved with a dangerous terrible and very wealthy man played by a nearly unrecognizable Jenkins then promptly engineers his own downfall. In the end, like so many noir stories, it’s a tale of a mismanaged ambition, unchecked greed and getting twisted up in lies, one’s own and others’. So, it all sound great, doesn’t it? Why doesn’t it work quite as great? Why’d it underperform at the box office so dramatically? Do people not care for neo-noir? Is it the somewhat leisure pacing? Is it the fact that in this day and age of strong female characters and feminist agendas, the movie, despite boasting a stunning range of female acting talent, doesn’t give them that much to do? Ok, the latter isn’t strictly the case. Cate Blanchett’s character has tons to do, for instance, but we are never sure of her motivations, for this is first and foremost very much Stan’s story. Rooney Mara is practically wasted. Toni Colette is woefully underused. This is, as the song says, a men’s world. I don’t know if that’s it either. I just know that despite the movie being as gorgeous as any Del Toro’s ever done and by gorgeous I mean absolutely complete visually arresting, despite having a strong compelling story, something’s missing here, Some of that Del Toro magic isn’t here. It’s almost like he took himself too seriously with this movie, tried to do too serious of a movie strategically. It’s still good, very, very good, it just isn’t quite great. Which is an unfair rubric one might say, but it’s Del Toro’s own fault for setting up expectations so high after years of mind-blowingly awesome work. I’m glad I saw it. It was in every meaning of a word spectacular. Frankly, wanting more out of it just might be greedy, which is ironic for a movie that’s all about the evils of greed. Recommended.
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