Drifters and grifters get director Guillermo del Toro’s macabre treatment in the 2021 remake of Nightmare Alley (B), an impeccably made and sometimes meandering film noir with a crackerjack Cate Blanchett infused final act. Set in early 1940s America, the movie is a showcase for Bradley Cooper as a mysterious nomad who works odd jobs in carnivals and leverages his talents as a cipher and sponge to become a bit of a mentalist to the upper class. Like many films in this genre, the antihero’s past is catching up with him, but the stakes in this case seem oddly low for much of the film’s prodigious duration. Cooper only occasionally captivates opposite a parade of colorful co-stars ranging from Willem Dafoe to Richard Jenkins to the aforementioned Blanchett (herself the most interesting character of all, an icy therapist). The production design is singularly exquisite, in both the roadside attractions and art deco upper crust sequences, and there is much to like when the characters give a glimpse behind their humble magic tricks. It’s a good but not great effort from a visionary who typically has a bit more up his sleeve.
Haunted characters inevitably return to the scene of the crime, and in Tom Ford’s stunningly realized neo-noir Nocturnal Animals (B+), its principals traverse a tragic, twisty journey to discover the inescapable character traits vexing them through adult life. Ford photographs both a posh Los Angeles modern day story and a Texas-set film-within-the-film with an almost dreamlike clarity. The actors radiate an arch intensity in flashbacks and flash-forwards over a blissfully dense old-Hollywood Abel Korzeniowski score. This amped-up storytelling style benefits shape-shifting Amy Adams as a wealthy but lonely art curator a bit more than intense-in-any-role Jake Gyllenhaal as a novelist and star of his own shattered American pastoral. Shining in more straightforward supporting performances are Michael Shannon as a plainspoken Texas detective, Aaron Tayor-Johnson as a wild-tempered roadside ruffian and a nearly unrecognizable Laura Linney as a headstrong matriarch. Packing a punch within a puzzle, Ford’s tone poem is part romance, part revenge thriller, part requiem for one’s soul; and it’s consistently absorbing and affecting. In the tradition of Mulholland Drive, In the Bedroom and Fargo, it’s a film for those who love the form. The curious finale is sure to spark conversations among cinephiles.
Brace yourself for David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (B+), a wild ride into the illusions of Hollywood where nothing is what it seems; or if it is, it won’t be for long. Naomi Watts is wonderful as a classic Lynch protagonist in a film that may or may not involve souls switching bodies, color-coded lights that may or may not involve parallel universes and just enough weirdness to keep you hooked.
Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (A+) is a superb detective caper introducing American audiences to a trio of magnificent performers — Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey — as Hollywood cops circa 1953. The myth and illusion of Tinseltown versus the scandals and shakedowns is a wonder to behold. Kim Basinger is a symbol of the town shrouded in mystery. The labyrinthine plot, the knife-sharp camerawork and the epic characterizations make this a spectacular modern classic evocative of Chinatown.
David Lynch’s Lost Highway (C-) is a film noir with Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette that loses its way with some plotting hokum about characters that possibly move out of each other’s souls. It’s a jarring, disconnecting ride that starts with promise and goes off the rails.