Nightmare Alley (2021)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.
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The film seems to be drawing some inspiration from Batman Returns (1992) – the best Batman , as far as art-direction geeks are concerned – with its vivid gothic and modernist spaces and its endless, swirling snow.
It’s such a thrill to watch Blanchett spar with Cooper during their characters’ private sessions — the shimmering art deco sets and constantly falling snow add a gothic menace straight out of “Batman Returns” — that del Toro might be forgiven for only allowing she and Mara to share a single uncanny scene, each of the actors kitted out in mid-century looks worthy of the “Carol” reunion.
And so we have film noir, horror, and grotesquerie all at play here—a melding of 1945’s Detour, Crimson Peak, and Tod Browning’s Freaks.
The first half is something of a Horatio Alger story fused with Tod Browning’s creepy 1932 tale, “Freaks.”
But Stan is never truly embraced as “one of us” — that oft-quoted mantra of Tod Browning’s “Freaks,” the reigning classic of this milieu, against which “Nightmare Alley” must inevitably be judged — and for good reason.
Del Toro’s interpretation of noir visualizations is sometimes muted and rigidly unreal, save one transcendent bleeding angel sequence that evokes Crimson Peak .
Del Toro's earlier efforts align more closely with horror sensibilities, as films like Pan's Labyrinth , Crimson Peak , and The Shape of Water have allowed him the opportunity to tackle richer themes and genres, while never turning their nose up at genre sensibilities.
From Pan’s Labyrinth to Crimson Peak Guillermo del Toro makes luscious thrive in darkness.
With films like Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Crimson Peak (2015), and The Shape of Water (2017), del Toro is a director not interested in the constraints of the real world as he is in the possibilities of the imagination.
It is a mixture of human complexity we see in Crimson Peak , where relationships become fractured, dark secrets eventually arise; And it also has the incredibly compelling final act that had me leaning forward with every turn.
Credit where it’s due, del Toro’s film was substantially more romantic and imaginative than, say, the righteous tedium of Spielberg’s The Post from the same year, which already feels like an answer to a trivia question.
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Imbued with shades of green and blue, the otherworldly and awe-inspiring cinematography and lighting recall del Toro’s last film, The Shape of Water.
Del Toro's earlier efforts align more closely with horror sensibilities, as films like Pan's Labyrinth , Crimson Peak , and The Shape of Water have allowed him the opportunity to tackle richer themes and genres, while never turning their nose up at genre sensibilities.
The dream begins with “Nightmare Alley” being Guillermo del Toro’s first movie since the marvel that is “ The Shape of Water ”(2017).
You may remember that Guillermo del Toro’s last film — the strange, somewhat surprisingly Oscar-laden adult fairytale The Shape of Water — ended, appropriately, in water: a plunging turquoise expanse, an eternal resting place for two doomed, sinking, but finally unencumbered lovers.
In Guillermo del Toro's "Nightmare Alley," the visionary director's somewhat labored follow-up to his Oscar-winning "The Shape of Water," all the world is a carnival, the only thing that changes is the marks.