Nightmare Alley it's a movie with Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe Full cast. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Original title Nightmare Alley, runtime 139 minutes. Genres Drama, Crime, Mystery, Thriller.
reviews
Review of
![Diego Cineriflessi]()
Diego Cineriflessi
Diego Cineriflessi
Del Toro's cinema has always been inspired by alternative worlds, it feeds on the stuff of dreams and transports the spectator into the fantastic. Precisely this time, when the original title speaks of a nightmare, the plot is set in a real and historical world. Will it be a coincidence? In this noir which at times seems like the mirror work of The Shape of Water to the point that the fantastic is just a scam, the freak or the monsters are completely and only human and everything that was hope and love becomes careerism and desperation. A reversal of Del Toro's poetics that shocks and leads us into an ugly and heavy world. Of course it relies on an extraordinary technical cast and the sets and photographs are textbook. Del Toro immerses us in a dark world, made of subterfuge, intrigue and greed. His direction is classic and gives the film a pace that is at times too slow and predictable. In fact, despite the excellent performances of the three supporting actors Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Toni Colette, it is Bradley Cooper who lacks charisma and intensity and who weighs down the whole film. The Fair of Illusions probably suffers from a literary derivation that struggles to take root on the big screen and which becomes verbose when transferred to film, despite being the second cinematic adaptation of the novel. In short, it remains an aesthetically wonderful film, but with very little else. From www.cineriflessi.blogfree.it
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Review of
![Stefano Tacconi]()
Stefano Tacconi
Stefano Tacconi
presented as Del Toro's "The Prestige", it has little or nothing of Nolan's work, while it has everything of the Mexican filmmaker's art. The colors (turned to green in the interiors just like in "The Shape of Water"), the historical period, the monsters/freaks, the attention to the framing, the interior architecture, well this Fair is Del's Expo Bull. A film that, visually, is a constant pleasure and even the crudest sequences or the most disturbing images are always carefully crafted and refined. The female cast (Colette, Mara, Blanchett) always enchanted by the handsome Cooper adds refinement to a setting that has nothing welcoming about it, while the protagonist deceives everyone with charisma and "mentalistic" games that seem to come out of the screen and influence us spectators too . A Noir from other times, lost in the obsessive smoke, in the always rainy or snowy climate, with evocative flashbacks (which betrayed me a little, taking me to evolutions that didn't exist) and... well-recognizable characterizations of the characters. At the end of the viewing I have the feeling that something was missing, but on balance it's more my fault for a plot that I expected and never got where I thought it would. I imagine several nominations for the next Oscars.EDIT: I didn't know the original and I was missing some references. As it happens, that sense of "absence" that I perceived and couldn't explain was precisely in the director's choice not to tell the protagonist's past, except through evocative images often taken in flashbacks. There was also a bit more sexuality missing, too glossy here, never murky, never vulgar (in fact I defined it refined above).
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7.4/10 of
![Alessandro Castrini]()
Alessandro Castrini
Alessandro Castrini
Screenplay 1.4/2 Direction 1.5/2 Actors 1.2/1.5 Cinematography 1.1/1.5 Set design, visual effects 0.7/1 Make-up, hairstyles, costumes 0.8/1 Sounds, soundtrack 0.6/1 Bonus +The plot is very interesting but the film has highs and bass, in some places too slow. Nice characters and excellent performances by the actors.
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Review of
![Balkan Castevet]()
Balkan Castevet
Balkan Castevet
After having experimented with various genres, this time it's noir for Del Toro, even if The Shape Of Water also had many genre moments, it is no coincidence that many shots recall noir cuts, many of the character dynamics are also typical of the genre and are there several quotes from cult films. Personally, I saw socio-political criticism in the film, especially linked to Trumpism and also to the overused "American dream"... the protagonist Stanton as well as being the classic mysterious man, careerist who wants money at any cost typical of noir is a character who tries to please customers with false answers or rather answers that he knows the customers will like, he tells them what they want to hear. Here I have reviewed a lot of current politics and it also shows how the answers easy, false ones actually lead to conflict and it is no coincidence that the story is set during the Second World War. Stanton's parable refers to a typical Deltorian message, in Hellboy we asked ourselves what defines a man and here too the choices are really define who you are. The noir dynamic between Stanton and the psychologist Ritter (Blanchett) works well, it has a lot of emphasis, an atmosphere that is always tense and with good developments. Molly (Rooney Mara) on the other hand is a functional character but little explored. Here are the secondary characters among which those of the fair are all a little too little explored but for the narrative (which in any case lasts 2.30 more or less) they make their own. As world building there are many typical traits of Del Toro, the Christian references, the speeches on faith, biblical symbolism (Enoch) and also a mix of Lovecraft. In terms of direction, staging and photography the film is a great sight (and here I had no doubts), construction of the picture, choice of color and visual rendering are at very high levels high. The film starts with this very dull color but the more the narrative moves towards the canons of
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plot
An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.