"Nightmare Alley"
Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) is a mysterious drifter who, with nowhere to go and nothing better to do, ends up in the travelling carnival of Clement Hoatley (Willem Dafoe). He learns from the various carnies, including ageing con artist Pete (David Straithairn), his psychic Tarot reader wife Zeena (Toni Collette), strongman Bruno (Ron Perlman) and The Major (Mark Povinelli); but most importantly he bonds with Molly the Electric Girl (Rooney Mara), and decides to strike out on his own as a con artist and grifter. The two of them take their act to the city, encountering more strange people like a mysterious woman (Cate Blanchett) and an even odder man (Richard Jenkins); and as this pair of carnival hucksters lie and cheat and spin their way from the gutter to high society we have to ask:
Is he man, or is he beast?
If you like Del Toro, you'll enjoy this. It's an intoxicating period piece of film noir, all slime and sleaze and oil, but with that veneer of respectability, as we follow a genuinely charming but thoroughly soulless man from the bottom of society, and its nasty underbelly, on this journey. Sound design in excellent, the cast unanimously excellent (Straithern and Collette were my favourites: I'd love a movie about this washed up, burnout drunkard of a conman and his genuinely caring, loving "psychich medium" of a wife) and the settings gorgeous. My favourite shot comes towards the end, as our protagonist (?) runs in an ever more savage and bestial manner...
It's a twisty, bending plot through the eyes of a guy we do not like but are intrinsically drawn to (funny that...) as he learns, watches, observes, and practices... But is he as clever as he thinks he is?
It's great fun, bloody too. But may be a bit too long for some folks' tastes.
No comments:
Post a Comment