Nightmare Alley

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Running time: 2hr30 | REVIEWED BY CATHERINE BRAY

Cate Blanchett stars in Nightmare Alley

It’s the 1940s, somewhere in America. It’s a dark and stormy night. In the distance, the bright lights of a carnival beckon, a temptation glimpsed through the murk. Within minutes, our hero (or is he?) Stanton Carlisle, played by an impeccably cast Bradley Cooper, is wincing in horror as — crunch! — he witnesses the carnival’s geek doing what carnival geeks do. How could a guy get so low?

This question — how could a guy get so low? — lies at the heart of all noir. Films noir tend to stand or fall by how elegantly they construct that downward spiral in which their heroes are inevitably caught. Maybe they escape in the end, maybe they don’t — the fascination is in seeing how they come to the crunch point. 

The traditional noir catalysts are all in play in Nightmare Alley: there’s a young, innocent woman, the prospect of fame and fortune, and a ravishing femme fatale, all operating within a harsh world without safety nets or second chances. In this world, when a guy’s down, he’s down for good, which makes the lure of a big win all the harder to resist.

I’m so pleased for Bradley Cooper, who seems to have recently figured out exactly the roles he should be playing. I never warmed to him when we were meant to be swooning over him in comedies and action movies, but now that he’s entered his dirtbag loser era, I can’t get enough. As an alcoholic fading star in A Star Is Born, as an egomaniac womaniser in Licorice Pizza and now as a hustling conman in Nightmare Alley, he’s found his groove. This is not to imply anything untoward about the actual Bradley Cooper, but the man has an undeniable gift for playing losers. 

Hopefully he will continue to find roles that allow him to make the most of this gift — more modern noir would be a good place to start, with its built-in downward spiral, and those temptations glimpsed through the murk… And speaking of temptations, it would be a dereliction of duty on my part not to mention Cate Blanchett’s metallic, rasping turn as some kind of sexy lizard woman (and I do mean this as a compliment). She’s so fatale that at times she’s barely femme, and more of a kind of super-charged avatar for duplicity, with shades of Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon and Ann Savage in Detour all in the mix. And, of course, as a dash of Helen Walker in the original 1947 Nightmare Alley — against which this enjoyable remake absolutely holds its own.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) Written by Guillermo del Toro, Kim Morgan | Shot by Dan Laustsen | Edited by Cam McLauchlin

In cinemas now.