Review: Nightmare Alley

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

A stylish noir epic with a humdinger of an ending, Guillermo del Toro's "Nightmare Alley" is one of the darkest Hollywood films I've seen in some time. Based on the 1947 film of the same name starring Tyrone Power, the picture is oozing with atmosphere, features a number of great actors in supporting performances and is often terrifying as to how far into the depths of human depravity it is willing to plunge.

The film stars Bradley Cooper as Stanton Carlisle, a con man whom we first see burning a body in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and then catching a bus to a small town, where he stumbles upon a carnival and finds employment. We're pretty far well into the film when Cooper actually speaks his first line of dialogue, and it's when his attention has been caught by one of the carnival's performers - the geek, a haggard man kept in a cage who bites the heads off chickens.

Cooper is hired to do odd jobs at the carnival by Clem (Willem Dafoe), an unscrupulous man who tells Stanton that the way he finds his geeks is seeking out desperate drunks whom he slowly feeds opium in the rations of booze he doles out and gets them hooked. At that point, they will do anything - including biting the heads off chickens - for that next sip.

Stanton finds success in the carnival and a new group of friends - including Molly (Rooney Mara), a shy girl he woos whose acts involves being shocked with electricity, and Zeena and Pete (Toni Collette and David Strathairn), a pair whose mind reading act intrigues Stanton. Under Pete's tutelage, Stanton gets incorporated into the act, and eventually plans to break out on his own by using the tricks of the trade. He convinces Molly to run away with him - much to the chagrin of Bruno (Ron Perlman), a burly carnie who acts as her guardian - and the two find success as stage mystics.

It's during one of their shows at a venue populated by rich people that Stanton meets Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychiatrist whose very presence screams "femme fatale." She agrees to divulge the secrets of some of her wealthy clients - which Stanton will use when summoning the dead to allow them to speak to those they've lost - in exchange for him allowing her to analyze him.

Molly is uncomfortable with Stanton's new racket, and during a visit from some of their old carnival friends, Zeena warns that Stanton is getting in over his head, especially after Ritter introduces him to a man named Grindle (Richard Jenkins), a seemingly dangerous individual who wants to be put in touch with a former flame who died. Grindle's right-hand man, the burly Anderson (Holt McCallany, of "Mindhunter"), tells Stanton that he will do anything to protect Grindle and, if Stanton is smart, that should scare him.

On the one hand, it's pretty easy to see where "Nightmare Alley" is going, right down to the disturbing and horrifying twist of fate in the finale, but it's the manner in which the film gets there that makes it work so well. I guessed correctly at what the final scene would be, but the way in which Cooper - and Tim Blake Nelson, in a cameo - play it was still a punch in the gut.

Del Toro's films often involve fantastical characters and stories - such as the remarkable "Pan's Labyrinth" and the offbeat fairy tale Oscar winner "The Shape of Water" - but his foray into noir feels like the work of a pro. "Nightmare Alley" is an unsettling, but visually sumptuous, and unrepentantly dark chronicle about how the horrors of one man's past lead him down the wrong path. This being a noir, there are - of course - some thuggish henchmen, a femme fatale and an ironic twist of fate. 

"Nightmare Alley" is one of two - the other being Steven Spielberg's "West Side Story" - recent remakes that work surprisingly well because rather than paying slavish homage, their creators often take their updates in directions that are different from the originals. As such, "Nightmare Alley" turns a classic noir into an epic of one man's descent and downfall. It's a good one.