Guillermo Del Toro’s career to date has been a fascinating one, with stories of apocalypse-averting demons, gigantic metallic titans and a romance between a woman and a fish-man (for which he finally lifted the Oscar for Best Director). But with Nightmare Alley (an adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s seminal noir, previously adapted in 1947) he has taken a relative left turn, stripping away some of the more fantastical elements and turning his eyes to the darkness that can found within a very human subject matter.
Our ‘hero’ is Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) – a con artist with a past he’s trying to get away from and ambitions above his station. He infiltrates a carnival and learns some tricks that prove remarkably useful. But soon the darkness within him starts to become more-and-more apparent.
Cooper leads a terrifically committed ensemble, with some fabulous performers (Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn, Richard Jenkins) flitting in-and-out of the narrative, each leaving their own clear mark on the proceedings. Cooper has an unreadable quality here, right up until the moments his mask slips. But the show is very nearly stolen by Cate Blanchett (of course) whose arrival in the second half reshapes the work we are watching as she sinks her teeth into the scenery around her.
But this is Del Toro’s film and marks as one of his best (perhaps the strongest he has been since Pan’s Labyrinth). A skilled craftsman, the director here regains his talent at presenting cynical, broken worlds. Humans have always been the real monsters in Del Toro’s worlds and the absence of the supernatural means there is nothing to hide the face of the ugly world he is portraying. It’s compelling and makes Nightmare Alley one of his more mature works.
This absence of the supernatural, along with a deliberate pace, may well frustrate some. But as the narrative works towards a truly horrifying conclusion, you can’t help but smile at what Del Toro has put together and his commitment to a truly wicked little noir. Time is taken to build the world around