Nightmare Alley (2021, Guillermo de Toro)It’s the luxurious visual spectacle I wish all pi

Nightmare Alley (2021, Guillermo de Toro)It’s the luxurious visual spectacle I wish all pictures could be. That’s no surprise considering the director and anyone involved in set design and art direction that Guillermo del Toro is known for. Countless shots are suitable for framing (no pun intended) and many of them look like complete lifts from WPA Kodachrome collections at the Library of Congress. It was 1941-43 and I believed it. Not only is the carnival a fully realized realm with authentic 70 to 100-year-old rides and attractions, ancient show banners, creaky stages, and an iron proscenium laced with neon, but the office spaces and dwellings of the city characters put you in a period that might be called Rococo Art Deco. Add blankets of snow and all of it’s a dream.Add the pulp-fiction narrative, however, and all of it is definitely a nightmare.I know the novel and the first motion picture version of this story front to back, but at times, with this adaptation, I still found myself dreading the next bad decision that Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper with despair in his eyes and a smirk on his face) was bound to to make. The doomsday vibe from this character almost induces claustrophobia.It’s grim and hellish stuff, and I wonder how the beyond-grim final half hour of this picture comes across to viewers who go into it cold. It’s possible modern audiences don’t like the slow build, but that would be odd in the era of 4-season, 8-episode Netflix and HBO series.Numerous reviewers whom I respect have expressed disappointment with this latest from del Toro. Something about enjoying the noir elements, the pulp gloom and danger, and the magnificent dreamlike settings…but wanting more. Wanting “substance” or “life.”You know what folks who go to carnivals expecting substance and then walk away disappointed are called? They’re called “marks.”Joint runners can spot them at a distance. -- source link

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