Scene Steal­ers: A late descent into mad­ness in Night­mare Alley

Guiller­mo del Toro has always been fas­ci­nat­ed by the fan­tas­ti­cal; since 1993’s Cronos his films have fea­tured vam­pires, giant under­sea mon­sters, ghosts and every­thing in between. His neo-noir adap­ta­tion of William Lind­say Gresham’s 1946 nov­el Night­mare Alley rep­re­sents some­thing of a depar­ture; although toy­ing with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of spir­its beyond our realm, the Machi­avel­lian forces in this sto­ry are all too human.

Chief among them is Bradley Cooper’s Stan­ton Carlisle, an ambi­tious drifter who finds his way into the employ of a trav­el­ling car­ni­val run by Clem (Willem Dafoe), who oper­ates the freak­show, ply­ing drifters with alco­hol to debase them­selves as live chick­en-eat­ing ​“geeks” in the name of mon­ey. Unde­terred by the carnival’s seedy prac­tices, Stan­ton quick­ly ingra­ti­ates him­self with mys­tic per­former Madame Zeena (Toni Colette) and her alco­holic hus­band Pete (Dave Strath­ern) who even­tu­al­ly, reluc­tant­ly, agree to teach him the secrets of their psy­chic performance.

The enter­pris­ing Stan­ton soon leaves the car­ni­val with shy car­ni­val employ­ee Mol­ly (Rooney Mara), and even­tu­al­ly turns the act Zeena and Pete taught him into a stage show for the wealthy audi­ences of Buf­fa­lo, New York. His ambi­tion and greed bring him to the atten­tion of scep­ti­cal psy­chol­o­gist Lil­lith Rit­ter (Cate Blanchett) and mon­eyed client Ezra Grindall (Richard Jenk­ins). From there, the con goes on and on, as Carlisle reveals he will stop at noth­ing to get what he wants.

Between his fleet­ing but unfor­get­table role as Jon Peters in Licorice Piz­za and his intox­i­cat­ing turn in Night­mare Alley, Bradley Coop­er has had quite the year – and in a more just world would have received more recog­ni­tion for it – but rarely has a part seemed more suit­ed to his tal­ents that of Sta­ton Carlisle, effort­less­ly charm­ing and twist­ed as he is. Despite the pres­sure of liv­ing up to Tyrone Pow­ers’ excel­lent per­for­mance in Edmund Goulding’s 1947 orig­i­nal adap­ta­tion, Coop­er is a fine choice to embody both Stanton’s cal­cu­lat­ing cov­er and his even­tu­al des­per­ate spi­ral when it becomes clear he is no longer the one in control.

One key dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between del Toro and Goulding’s adap­ta­tions is the former’s deci­sion to keep the novel’s bleak end­ing ful­ly intact. Gould­ing changed the con­clu­sion slight­ly, allow­ing Stanton’s sto­ry to end on a slight­ly more hope­ful note (for com­mer­cial rea­sons) but in true del Toro style, he opts to con­tin­ue the sense of for­bod­ing right up until the end cred­its; it’s here that Coop­er is tru­ly at his best.

After we learn that Carlisle effec­tive­ly killed his own father by allow­ing him to con­tract hypother­mia in his dying days and then burned down their house to dis­pose of the evi­dence, we reunite with him once again drift­ing the coun­try, hav­ing fall­en on hard times since he was swin­dled by Lil­lith Rit­ter. With no bet­ter options, he hits the bot­tle hard, and soon hap­pens across a new car­ni­val, run by a seem­ing­ly sym­pa­thet­ic man (Tim Blake Nel­son) who has inher­it­ed sev­er­al props from Clem’s old show.

Ever the enter­pris­er, Carlisle attempts to talk his way into a job; even with his dishev­elled appear­ance, he has a spiel about his act ready to go. For the briefest moment, it seems as though he may have land­ed on his feet, until the carnie begins relay­ing the terms of Carlisle’s new gig: the geek in his trav­el­ling show. ​“Course it’s only tem­po­rary,” he says. ​“Just until we get a real geek.”

Carlisle, of course, knows this grift all too well. ​“Mis­ter,” He begins to sob, ​“I was born for it.” Then he begins to laugh, accept­ing after all this time, he’s in the place he deserves. The lin­ger­ing shot of his face, alter­nat­ing between laugh­ter and tears, is an unabashed­ly bleak end­ing to a film about the human capac­i­ty for swin­dling and vio­lence of both a phys­i­cal and men­tal nature. After spend­ing so long inflict­ing mis­ery on oth­ers, Carlisle appears to get his just desserts, and as the back­ground music cuts out, Carslile’s trag­ic laugh­ter echoes all around him – he realis­es he’s lost every­thing, once and for all.

The fairy tales of del Toro’s fil­mog­ra­phy often couch human expe­ri­ences in fan­tas­ti­cal worlds, but this grim sto­ry is firm­ly root­ed in real­i­ty, call­ing into ques­tion the price of suc­cess and sticky ethics of men­tal­ism – a trade which endures, even long past its anti­quar­i­an hey­day. It might be last fan­tas­ti­cal that his Best Pic­ture-win­ning love sto­ry The Shape of Water, but Night­mare Alley is no less fas­ci­nat­ing a trip to the bot­tom of the abyss, and although its end­ing serves as the bleak­est among this year’s crop of Best Pic­ture nom­i­nees, it’s a show­case for an under­rat­ed actor, and a dark­ly amus­ing note to end on as his sto­ry comes full cir­cle. While we might feel some sat­is­fac­tion that Carlisle has final­ly run out of grifts, his fate of pub­lic degra­da­tion and alco­holism is a grim one. If we don’t feel at least a lit­tle bad for Stanton…well, what saves us from being just as awful as the gawk­ing pub­lic at the freakshow?