Cooper swindles his way to the top in carnival drama
I love the way Guillermo del Toro spends a production budget. The director-fabulist behind “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water” and other trancelike stories wants us to feel, and smell, and taste what he does. The worlds he creates on screen are a part of the world around us, as well as a different one, sprung from his imagination, in cahoots with some brilliant designers.
“Nightmare Alley” is del Toro’s latest exercise in methodical cinematic hypnotism. It’s an adaptation of the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel. The new film is also in spiritual cahoots with Edmund Goulding’s 1947 film version. That one starred heartthrob Tyrone Power, in a harsh change of pace.
Bradley Cooper takes the Power role this time: He plays Stanton Carlisle, ambitious, rootless carnival worker. First Stan cozies up to the phony clairvoyant (Toni Collette), married to a sweet, dissolute “mentalist” (David Strathairn). Another carny, Molly (Rooney Mara), a beacon of uncorruptible sympathy, becomes Stan’s next stepping stone, stage partner and wife. She’s his way out of the small time, and he’s hers.
The new mentalism attraction is a hit. Swank, untrustworthy psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) catches Stan and Molly’s act one night, and soon enough she and Stan are back at her place, discussing a dangerous business proposition and a few other intimate matters.
The screenplay by del Toro and longtime critic and film historian Kim
Morgan manages a tricky tonal challenge, preserving and heightening the pungent language of the novel, while borrowing (a little) from the previous, more economical film version’s inventions. The new film’s rhythm sometimes putters, and I never thought I’d say this of the great Richard Jenkins, but he’s somewhat miscast here in a crucial role as a wealthy target for Stan’s big score.
Early on Stan witnesses firsthand the miserable plight of the traveling carnival “geek,” brought low enough in his untreated chemical addictions and circumstances to make a slow death of a living the hard way: as a geek biting the heads off chickens, or snakes. Neither the novel nor del Toro’s film stints on grisly details, and del Toro fills his compositions with alarming artifacts and emblems of humankind’s thirst for the macabre.
The film operates on a peculiar, somewhat languid rhythm, and there are times when the story’s needs take a back seat to the visual detail. But “Nightmare Alley”
has nerve and relentless, fantastic style. Cooper’s essential co-stars, along with the actors, include production designer Tamara Deverell and art director Brandt Gordon.
Gresham’s novel oozes skepticism and dread when it comes to booze, psychotherapy, dames, you name it. It has now inspired two radically different film versions. At this point in the pandemic, and in the related life span of brick-and-mortar movie theaters not showing a Marvel or a “Star Wars” movie, it’s impossible to talk about audience prospects. I hope people go — and if know they’re in for a tough, sobering, sadly beautiful experience, they won’t wonder why they took the chance.
MPAA rating: R (for strong/ bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language)
Running time: 2:20 Where to watch: Now in theaters