Nightmare Alley

Rooney Mara, Bradley Cooper, Mark Povinelli and Ron Perlman  in “Nightmare Alley.” Fox Searchlight photos via IMDB

How much you'll like “Nightmare Alley” depends on how you feel about freak shows.

As opposed to ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds associated with first loves at wholesome state fairs, freak shows were among the carney attractions in the early part of the last century, pitching their tents across the heartland to dupe the rubes with a bizarre assortment of accidents of nature.Exotic dancing girls and silver-tongued devils conned the crowds. The freaks were the Darwinian miscues with extra or missing appendages or organs, or bones like rubber, there to fascinate or repulse all who had a dime to enter the tent.

The bizarre world of carney freaks is like catnip for writer-director Guillermo del Toro in his remake of the 1947 noir thriller. Weird visions on movie screens are a trademark for the Mexican filmmaker who, you may recall, won a bunch of Oscars in 2018 for “The Shape of Water,” which also revolved around a misunderstood “half-man half-animal.” 

And you've got to believe freaks hold special appeal for star Bradley Cooper, who earned critical praise on stage for not relying on his good looks to play another side-show attraction, “The Elephant Man.”

This time Cooper inherits the Tyrone Power role of Stanton Carlisle who happens upon a carnival as he flees from committing a heinous crime, and winds up staying around a while.

The carney midway is a bottomless pit for del Toro's beautifully creepy visuals, and draws lots of awards-season star power – Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, David Strathairn, Ron Perlman (paired up with mustachioed three-foot-nine Mark Povinelli) – who seem to enjoy getting in touch with their seedier, more depraved sides.

Everything's an illusion, a grift, a hustle in the carney world, and handsome Stan proves himself a quick study. Quick enough to convince the lovely Molly (Mara), that she deserves better than life on the midway and run away with him. 

Quick enough to be passing himself off a few years later in luxurious hotel showrooms as a mentalist transmitting messages to members of his now upscale audiences from their dear lost loved ones, “on the other side.”

Newspaper headlines and radio broadcasts carry news of the day – Pearl Harbor, We're at War! – as del Toro's cinematography finds new delights in the marble skyscrapers and Deco interiors he discovers in the city. These luxe new surroundings also let him add some more award contenders to the cast – Cate Blanchet as alluring psychiatrist Lilith Ritter, and Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins as some of the rich folks she leads the mentalist to, who are willing to pay highly for his “services.”

Who's conning who? becomes the obvious question, although it takes Stan a little too long to start asking it. In the '40s when the book was written, it's easy to imagine that psychiatry was regarded as one more form of mental hocus pocus, only more powerful. It was mind reading, for real.

Despite all its Oscar bonafides and arriving at awards season “For Your Consideration,” “Nightmare Alley” is more playful than high-minded in its intentions. The performances are arch caricatures rather than more human beings, by design. They are like sideshow posters brought to life, romping in del Toro's noir playground. Film noir was the creation of black-and-white imaginations; del Toro's addition of color and occasional over-the-top violence replace subtle nuance with vivid reminders that what it's really all about is burning in hell. Literally.

As opposed to the morality play of the original, this version borders on black comedy … for freak show aficionados at least. You know who you are. (Or I should add, we know who we are.)

I've long wondered what motivates creative artists to do remakes. Art, I think, should be a reflection of its times. Going back to the past is archaeology. But it turns out eccentric visionaries like del Toro might be more comfortable back there, where men wore fedoras and leather jackets and women wore ruby red lipstick, and everyone smoked, and boxy buses whooshed along neon-lit streets into the dark night.

And besides, some things don't change. When it comes to buying illusions, the 2020s haven't advanced much from the 1940s. We've been getting victimized by the biggest grift in history for years now, falling sucker to it every time.