Thoughts on Nightmare Alley

Earlier this month, I watched Nightmare Alley, directed by Guillermo del Toro, as it just hit Hulu. I was mixed on it, as it has a great cast, except for Bradley Cooper. He just seemed miscast, like he doesn’t really belong in a 1940s noir, playing a con man mentalist, and seems too much like a modern-day frat bro type to fit in. I also didn’t like how, despite that it was trying to have an old-fashioned carnival look, it looked too slick to me and artificial, like too much CGI. I think Carnivale, way back from HBO, did it better in making the 1930s carnival look more grimy and lived-in.

The good was that I liked the rest of the cast. Cate Blanchett as a femme fatale in the second half stole the movie and had this slow purring quality to her that I liked, ensnaring Cooper in a scheme to con rich people with fake mind readings that he’s too thick-headed to see how he’s being played. Rooney Mara has this wide-eyed Gothic cartoon look to her that I like, but she also works well in period films, like playing a 1950s shopgirl in Carol. Here she’s a carnival performer with an electricity act who Cooper falls for. The rest of the carnival cast is rounded out by Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, Toni Collette, David Strathairn, and Clifton Collins, Jr. There’s also a nice cameo by Tim Blake Nelson in the finale, Mary Steenburgen as an older woman grieving her late son through Cooper’s phony séance work, and Richard Jenkins as a seemingly clueless mark.

Toni Collette has a lot of charm in this as a fake mentalist, with long Veronica Lake-style hair, and I thought she was fun, especially with her and Strathairn playing a married couple and teaching Cooper their theater tricks. She isn’t in the movie as much, and I did miss her presence later on.

I felt it was long at two and a half hours, and that while I liked the carnival stuff, it didn’t seem to have much of a plot going on as it was just spending time with characters, and only really got going more once the Blanchett character entered the film (and I didn’t even realize she had a Carol reunion in this with Mara until afterwards). I haven’t seen the original 1940s film, so I can’t compare, but I felt like I enjoyed it in parts, but that the pacing dragged, and that Cooper was badly miscast, he just looked confused and out of place. I’d still recommend it if you want to check out the rest of the cast, the carnival scenes, and Blanchett’s performance.