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Bradley Cooper is the Nightmare in Nightmare Alley
While driving to Los Angeles the other day for a visit to a coffee shop and the infamous Griffith Observatory, I asked my husband to rank all the Guillermo Del Toro films. Just the night before we had seen his newest, Nightmare Alley, and were both a little underwhelmed. During that drive we revisited Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak, The Devil’s Backbone and the Hellboy’s. Still, we couldn’t get over how horribly cast Bradley Cooper was in the newest entry in Del Toro’s filmography.
The film opens and follows beat for beat the 1947 film of the same name. A young man, Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) leaves his life behind to join a group of carnies in a little place known as Nightmare Alley. There is Bruno the Strong Man (Ron Perlman), Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette), and Clem the dirty Ringmaster (Willem Dafoe). But quiet Stan’s eyes are only focused on two things — the beautiful Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and a little book of tricks that lives in the pocket of the carnival drunk Pete’s pocket (David Strathairn).
Stan believes he and Molly are better than the rest of the carnival dwellers. After one chance encounter where Stan utilizes some of Pete’s mentalism tricks to scare away the police men coming to shut down the festivities, Stan decides now is the time to take Molly and leave. The two run away to Buffalo, New York where in…
