Nightmare Alley movie review: Guillermo del Toro finds the monstrous in humanity

With a glittering cast that includes Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley finds the monstrous in humanity.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro loves monsters. From Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy to Crimson Peak and The Shape of Water, del Toro has established a career out of telling the stories of monsters.

Nightmare Alley is full of monsters. Except there’s nothing supernatural and every monster is human. On the one hand, that’s a departure for del Toro but on the other, sometimes there’s nothing more monstrous than humanity.

Starring Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, Nightmare Alley is adapted from a William Lindsey Gresham novel which had already been transformed into a 1947 film with Tyrone Power.

It’s a visually dazzling and well-performed film but one which suffers from a sluggish pace and a far-too-long runtime of two-and-a-half hours.

Set in the years before America’s entrance into World War II and in the aftermath of the Great Depression, Nightmare Alley explores the desperate darkness of man in a desperate and dark period of history.

Nightmare Alley is in cinemas now. Picture: Kerry Hayes/20th Century Studios

Stan (Cooper) is a man on the run from his mysterious past, glimpsed through flashes of memory.

He manages to land a job at a carnival, where he looks with disbelief at the debasement of its freak, a man reduced to animalistic behaviour for the voyeurism of onlookers and the profit of the carnival’s owner, Clem (Willem Dafoe).

There he also meets another performer, Molly (Mara), and a so-called mentalist named Zeena (Collette) who has a double act with her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn). Zeena and Pete teach Stan the tricks of the trade but warn him against using them to con people into believing they’re communing with the dead.

With a flashy smile, charisma and an enterprising spirit, Stan is able to reinvent himself as The Great Stanton, a high-end mentalism act that attracts the attention of femme fatale psychiatrist Lilith Ritter (Blanchett) who may prove to be his match.

Nightmare Alley is billed as a psychological noir thriller and it certainly has many elements of the genre, including a nihilistic streak. In Nightmare Alley, there are few heroes if any. Everyone is compromised to a degree.

Nightmare Alley has a nihilistic streak. Picture: 20th Century Studios

Perhaps that’s why the pacing feels so laboured, there are few moments of reprieve from the relentless spectre of lies and betrayal. But it is an effective portrait of the awful things people do to each other, including those we profess to care for.

When you compare that with del Toro’s wider oeuvre, of his love for monsters, of his belief in their redemption, it’s a grim indictment of humanity.

However, it is a beautifully crafted film, including its richly textured production design, the eye-popping cinematography by Dan Laustsen and nervy score by frequent Rian Johnson collaborator Nathan Johnson.

When you mix in the adept performances from all that screen talent, including an unvarnished turn from Cooper, there is still much to redeem Nightmare Alley, even if there’s not much goodness to be found in its characters.

Rating: 3/5

Nightmare Alley is in cinemas now

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