Nightmare Alley

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

★★½

Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper in the film NIGHTMARE ALLEY.

Addtl. Info

Photo by Kerry Hayes. © 2021 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved

Date Added

9/14/2021 11:30:00 AM

While The Shape of Water may have not been my favorite film of 2017 (Call Me by Your Name should’ve swept the Oscar’s), it no doubt elevated Guillermo Del Toro to auteur status. While he had other wonderful films under his belt, 2017 is when solidified himself as an all time great. His follow up to his Best Picture winner, is the neo-noir Nightmare Alley. While it is undoubtedly pristine visually, the film lacks emotional depth and competent scriptwork causing it to drown in its own cesspool of mediocrity. 

If The Shape of Water was his lean sirloin, Nightmare Alley is his fatty ribeye. The film opens with an hour-long first act, which functions mostly as an extended prologue filled to the brim with interesting, albeit unnecessary, characters. It absolutely would have benefitted from cutting its beginning down by at least a half hour. Choosing to not trim the fat in the premiere act causes the film to lose focus and feel rushed in the latter acts of the movie.

Another big frustration was the amount of hand-holding Del Toro does with the audience. While I appreciated some of his visual allusions, I was able to discern the film's ending within the first 20 minutes (having neither seen the original nor read the book). I admire Del Toro’s flair for detail, but a lot of the choices were too on-the-nose, feeling at times like he was literally playing chicken with the audience. The movie aims for cleverness and turns up with profound naivety.

There are some good performances to be found. Bradley Cooper has a terrific awards-baity scene at the end of the film, Cate Blanchett is having fun and Richard Jenkins is always great to watch. However, Toni Collette and Rooney Mara are both criminally underused. Mara is being campaigned for Lead Actress in the awards circuit at the moment, and while she is always great, her character is extremely passive and underwhelming. Additionally, no matter how incredible Blanchett always is, she isn’t given a lot to work with, and with the back half of the film revolving significantly around her character, it's impressive how much she was able to accomplish with the lack of skilled scriptwork she was presented with.

Nightmare Alley succeeds in its production design, visual flair and performances from a solid cast of actors that were able to turn something abysmal to watchable. Given Del Toro’s frustration with studio interference on Mimic, it's ironic that Nightmare Alley could have benefitted from a little guidance.