Nightmare Alley: Not worth a visit

Nightmare Alley (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong, bloody violence, sexual content, nudity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.17.21

Mid-20th century touring carnivals, by their very nature, seem … well … sordid.

 

Squalid. Uneasily unpleasant, as if something nasty is happening in the tent around the corner.

 

Although Molly (Rooney Mara) is instinctively wary around charismatic carnival newcomer
Stan (Bradley Cooper), his charm and aw-shucks persistence eventually wear her down.
Which isn't good news...

No surprise, such an environment proved alluring to director Guillermo del Toro.

Nightmare Alley began life as a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham (who, rather disturbingly, in 1962 committed suicide — via sleeping pills — in the same hotel room where he had written the first draft). Dashing Hollywood star Tyrone Power, looking for something meatier than the romantic and adventure roles for which he had become famous, persuaded 20th Century Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck to buy the rights for him.

 

The resulting film was rushed into production and hit theaters the following year; alas, nobody wanted to see Power play such a morally tainted character, and the movie also endured considerable bad publicity — and moral outrage — due to the story’s squalid elements (quite strong, for the time).

 

History has been much kinder; it’s now regarded as one of the era’s finest film noir entries … a reputation del Toro’s remake hasn’t a chance of attaining.

 

Granted, this new adaptation looks terrific; production designer Tamara Deverell and cinematographer Dan Lausten persuasively establish the late Depression era, down to the grime and foulness; and an atmosphere of impending dread hovers over the carnival setting like a shroud.

 

The performances are uniformly strong, and the characters are riveting, with most of them displaying various shades of corruption. It’s also nice to see del Toro and co-scripter Kim Morgan retain Gresham’s grim conclusion. (The 1947 version “softened” the ending, which is that film’s sole flaw.)

 

Alas, del Toro’s pacing is lethargic and ponderous to a degree that ruins everything.

 

The Los Angeles Times recently ran an article titled “Are movies too long?,” and this one’s a poster child for a resounding yes. The 1947 version knew when to get off the stage; it’s a just-right 111 minutes. Del Toro’s remake is a butt-numbing 150 minutes, with nothing to show for such expansion. Indeed, the additional length actually works against the story’s atmosphere and suspense.

 

That’s a shame, because all concerned otherwise do their best, and the classic elements are in place. Every true noirrequires a louse; a very, very, very bad gal; a second, usually trusting and naïve woman whose virtue will be compromised; and assorted sidebar characters of dubious moral quality.

 

So. The story:

 

Driven mostly by curiosity, charismatic drifter Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) wanders into a carnival one day; he catches the eye of hard-nosed Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe), the outfit’s gruff manager. That aside, Clem is inherently fair; he offers Stan a job as a barker.

 

Stan initially is drawn to Zeena (Toni Collette), the carnival’s resident seer and tarot reader, but he’s far more curious about the quiet Molly (Rooney Mara), who performs as “Elektra, The Lady Who Can Absorb Any Amount Of Voltage.” This interest isn’t appreciated by Bruno, the strong man (Ron Perlman), long protective of Molly; unlike Clem, Bruno doesn’t trust the manipulative Stan at all. (Nor do we.)

 

Bruno also notices that, despite Stan’s quick smile and superficial charm, he doesn’t put much effort into becoming part of the “family.” The carnies look out for each other, with Clem, Bruno and the diminutive Major Mosquito (Mark Povinelli) as the caring patriarchs.

 

Stan chooses to remain on the outskirts, mostly because he’s always seeking the next angle. He finds it in Zeena’s husband, Pete (David Strathairn), who long ago devised a hit mind-reading act, based on an ingenious code, that wowed high-paying audiences. But he eventually took it too seriously, turning the act into a “spook show” that psychologically damaged audience members; guilt and remorse transformed him into a barely functioning alcoholic.

 

Strathairn’s performance is sublime. Shame radiates off Pete like a bad smell, and his melancholy bearing is heartbreaking; even so, he’s occasionally able to summon a vestige of the pride he once felt, having devised and mastered such a great stage act.

 

Stan smells opportunity. 

 

His plan requires a colleague, at which point his overtures to Molly become more serious. And we think, Oh, nothing good can come of this.

 

The story is divided into two distinct acts; only the first concerns Stan’s time with the carnival. The second half, jumping ahead two years, finds him and Molly the cream of big city Buffalo’s high society, entertaining appreciative, sold-out crowds with a genuinely stunning mind-reading act.

 

The stage trickery aside, Stan also has become quite adept at “cold reading” people: a talent he puts to good use when the alluring Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) oozes into the audience one evening. As a Freudian psychoanalyst, she’s intrigued and amused by Stan and his “talent”; he, in turn, once again smells opportunity.

 

Consider the deliberate, delicious irony: Despite its atmosphere of shocks, squalor and wonder, the carnies function as a kind-hearted, mutually caring family. But now that the story has entered the halls of wealth and power, seduction and treachery will run rampant.

 

Blanchett is, as always, absolutely stunning; one cannot imagine any 1940s femme being more fatale. Lilith’s mocking, condescending smile conceals a gaze that misses nothing, and she reads Stan like a book. 

 

Their subsequent jousting — with the intensity of a sexually charged pas de deux — is the film’s high point. These scenes also are Cooper’s strongest moments, because Stan’s eternally cock-sure attitude finally sways in Lilith’s presence, although he still believes he’s out-maneuvering her. It becomes difficult to determine who’s actually manipulating whom.

 

And the story, which has flirted with malice and dishonesty up to this point, soon explodes into all-stops-out villainy.

 

Molly serves as the saga’s conscience; she’s the sole truly virtuous character. Her innocence eventually becomes quite disturbing, because she seems no match for the calculating Stan. Mara makes her waiflike and vulnerable, and we grieve at the thought of something bad happening to her.

 

Richard Jenkins is flat-out scary as Ezra Grindle, a wealthy man haunted by his past, who views Stan’s supposed clairvoyance as a means of finding peace. But Grindle has been fooled before, and isn’t to be trifled with; once again, the brash Stan doesn’t seem to realize that he’s stepping into the web of a particularly nasty spider.

 

Mary Steenburgen pops up briefly, but tellingly, as one of Stan’s first wealthy “believers.” 

 

Many modern filmmakers have attempted to replicate the classic film noir vibe; few have succeeded. It’s particularly frustrating that del Toro gets so close, but then blows it with his puffed up, self-indulgently sluggish delivery.

Such a shame.