Film Review: Nightmare Alley
Images courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
Once you begin to believe the madness, you’ve lost it.
Nightmare Alley presents a lesson in control as audiences endure a couple of years in the tumultuous life of a carnie rolling with the freakshow. As WWII grips the outer corners of the narrative, this reimagining of Edmund Goulding’s 1947 film of the same name is repackaged by Guillermo del Toro for 21st century audiences, whose shared experiences with the gig economy familiarise them with the struggles faced by Americans in the Great Depression.
Santon Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) attempts to exert control over his destiny in an era where most had none, as he runs from a dark past and evades contributing to the war effort. Brewing over the course of the late 1930s to early 1940s, Nightmare Alley exposes the selfish pursuit of profits created by the ego of those which prey upon the needy, and the desperation of those who have nothing to lose. The carnival attracts both kinds in spades.
“Geeks…”, Clem Hoatley (Willem Defoe) says of drunks, taken off the street and exploited to sell tickets to the show, “you tell ‘em it’s only temporary. You drug the drink, you give it when they need it & withhold when they don’t. They rely on us. They’re already lost, the alcohol, the morphine, it’s the magic & they’re already lost.”
Viewers can relate with the setting Great Depression under the context of similar global recessions which savaged jobs and destroyed wealth in the 2020s during the pandemic. Carlisle’s struggle to find a job and the savagery he shows on his way to the top, as he climbs the ranks of the travelling carnival, are salient. The control, or lack thereof, and the power of disbelief is deeply studied in Nightmare Alley. The morally bankrupt victims of The Depression, - people like Carlisle who are left with no job, no house, and no family - make do with oligarchs and the wealthy whose sons and husbands have died in the war. Carlisle’s carnival-trained medium skills, connecting the living and the dead, plays with the lucrative heartstrings of those with nothing to lose. Money can’t buy everything, but it can ruin anyone, and as a whimsical parallel to The Great Gatsby, Nightmare Alley stands tall.
The incredible direction of Nightmare Alley is a credit to the repertoire of del Toro. There is not an angle in this movie that isn’t gorgeous or gruesome as the 1940’s aesthetics are painstakingly recreated. Many breath-taking scenes incur a pseudo-psychedelic effect – often achieved with noir lighting and generous use of cigarette smoke – as reality, and again control along with it, are swept from beneath both viewer and Carlisle.
What is real? What is not? What we are told has a great deal of effect on our lives, what we believe traps us for better or worse. Whatever we choose to believe, control has already vanished and in a reflection of war, we see the plight of the needy, and the need to believe. Possessing a sense of control over one’s fate when greater forces are shaping the narrative creates cunning, depraved people who are desperate to grasp their fair share of riches from a world that never loved them.
Midnight Alley is showing in cinemas now.