David Farnor | On 25, Mar 2022

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman
Certificate: 15

“You don’t fool people. They fool themselves,” observes Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) midway through Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s beautifully bleak film noir. She’s speaking to Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a wandering loner who has found himself a lucrative line in clairvoyance. She’s a psychiatrist with a knack for getting people to open up; he’s a grifter with an eye for telling what people aren’t saying. Together, they’re a rotten match.

Based on the 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley follows Stanton as he finds work at a travelling circus, starting out as an eager hand and proving himself a quick study. Before you can say “mindreader”, he’s positioned himself as the apprentice of fortune teller Zeena (Toni Collette) and is learning the tricks of the trade from her alcoholic husband, Pete (David Strathairn). He soon grows to understand that it’s about reading your mark more than reading the stars, and becomes a dab hand at putting on theatrics while swapping coded signals with his partner in crime, Molly (Rooney Mara). But when Lilith swans into their act and makes him a tempting offer, things take an inevitable turn down a dark and twisting path.

Guillermo del Toro is in his element here, bringing his colourful love of the macabre and supernatural to the fore as he waltzes through a fantastical fairground of carnival grotesques, accompanied by Nathan Johnson’s gorgeously evocative score. As Stan and Molly climb the social and financial ladder, deal Toro weaves the Gothic horror of the first act with Art Deco flourishes, conjuring up a haze of pulpy thrills that’s grounded in noir’s gritty maze of moral corruption and unavoidable consequences. While Stan talks of spirits, fate is the sinister spectre lingering at the edge of the frame – the curtain is drawn back on his trickery, but the hand holding the rope is no less ghoulish.

Bradley Cooper has rarely been better than here, conducting his con artistry with a steely glint in his eye and a charming confidence that all but guarantees his downfall. He’s surrounded by an exceptional cast, from Willem Dafoe as a veteran carnie to Richard Jenkins as a wealthy man full of regret, flanked by Holt McCallany’s fiercely loyal bodyguard. But the star of the show is undoubtedly Cate Blanchett, who slinks across the beautifully lit sets oozing femme fatale magnetism.

Del Toro’s work has always believed that humans are the real monsters in this universe, and the script (co-written with Kim Morgan) whisks us down intoxicating avenues of greed, ambition and distrust. But there’s also a wonderful melancholy underneath the surface, from the way that Stan learns that everyone thinks their own past is a secret unique to them to Lilith’s understanding of the lasting influence parental relationships can hold. At its best moments, there is honesty in Nightmare Alley’s showcase of fakery – and, in a way, a romance in his showmanship, even as it ultimately hoodwinks him as well.

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