Don’t Look Up Nightmare Alley

It might seem like an unlikely coupling of movies or a joke from Lewis Carrol with no punchline – Why is Nightmare Alley like Don’t Look Up? But the Oscar race makes strange bedfellows. At least they do here at Nerd Girls Are Cool.

An airplane is not ideal movie watching. But what else are you going to do with that time? On one of the podcasts I listen to, the host, Deborah Frances-White, said something along the lines of the movie is a 9 in the air; it’s a 7 on land. Supposing this is true, apologies to Don’t Look Up in advance since my rating was nowhere near those numbers. My analysis of the movie could easily be tainted by the environment where I was watching the movie. Southwest seats leave a lot to be desired in the way of comfort. That’s probably why movie theaters are the way they are. And why I spent time in one to see a few of the other Oscar contenders, including Nightmare Alley.

There are lots of reasons I should like Don’t Look Up. It has an excellent cast- DiCaprio, Lawrence, Streep, Blanchett, Perry, Rylance, and for no reason whatsoever Chamalet. Adam McKay gives audiences an interesting take on the disaster movie. Don’t Look Up has several timely themes.

I just can’t.

While funny, Meryl Streep as a Trump-esque president did nothing to suspend my disbelief. There is no way in hell a woman would command the base required for the rest of the movie to take place. Not at least in contemporary society. We’d have to go forward probably another three hundred years or so before we find ourselves in a world where that would be possible. But much like everyone at the end of this movie, I don’t hold out hope of that ever being the case.

I can’t say that anyone had an exceptionally inspired performance, if I am honest. Leonardo DiCaprio played a plainer, pudgier version of The Man in the Iron Mask and King Louis. Jennifer Lawrence being Jennifer Lawrence. Mark Rylance did come with a healthy dose of weird, but that’s not outside his playbook. Cate Blanchett is the beautiful siren, ready to drag men down into the depths. More on her in a minute. I think you get my point.

I’m not saying the movie didn’t have an impact, though. Sorry, wrong word choice. Don’t Look Up came with an overwhelming sense of dread as the story unfolded. Streep’s character notwithstanding, I have absolutely no doubt that this would play out in real life much like it did on screen. It pains me to say that. Maybe that’s why I can’t commit to liking this movie. Call it pesky optimism, but I’d like to think that somehow we’d pull out of such a tailspin t do the right thing in the end. Or something moderately productive.

But, in two and a half hours, Don’t Look Up goes absolutely nowhere. None of the characters accomplish their end goals, not even the power-hungry greedy ones. No one has any growth beyond what Dorothy Gale learned in the Wizard of Oz. It’s a movie based on complete and total frustration. I might not find this so prohibitive to enjoying a dark comedy at another time. But, we’re not in another time. I don’t know about your 2022, but mine is still as frustrating, if not more than 2020 or 2021. I needed an escape and got a depressing carousel instead.

Carousels seem to be a familiar ride in this year’s Oscar race. Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley takes us for a spin. Opening up the movie with Bradley Cooper’s Carlisle struggling with a body bag and arson coupled with the subsequent scenes where he says nothing hooked me into wanting to know more about Carlisle and the carnival. Del Toro worked his magic to bring to life the fantastically grotesque world of post-Depression carnivals through lush cinematography, spot-on costuming, and makeup.

This film’s cavalcade of supporting talent is just as impressive as the cast list Don’t Look Up boasts. Willem Dafoe, Toni Colette, Rooney Mara, Blanchett again, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and the list goes on. I enjoyed the scenes with Colette’s Zeena and David Strathairn’s Pete. They were such a mismatched and wonderful set of characters.

After about an hour or so, I couldn’t help but get taken out of the show asking questions like why is this movie called Nightmare Alley if we’ve only heard it casually mentioned once? Someone needed to tighten up the storyline’s screws. Too much time was spent in some places, like the One-in-Ten, and not enough in others. It’s a struggle with movies born from books, but Nightmare Alley needed someone with a set of scissors and scotch tape.

Cate Blanchett’s femme fatale is the lack of editing’s most prominent victim. She does a fantastic job of playing the role of the street-wise yet intellectual Dr. Lilith Ritter. Her scene in the ballroom, trying to tear down Carlisle’s act, was film noir femme at its finest. And then, just like that, it’s gone. Poof. She goes in with Carlisle’s schemes for a couple of therapy sessions? That doesn’t track. She double-crosses him for, we have to assume, the money, but that didn’t feel like enough. Maybe it’s me, but I think they were trying to move away from the traditional femme fatale and didn’t commit fully.

Either way, Lilith puts Carlisle on his own tailspin into the gutter, or I suppose Nightmare Alley, but it’s never explicitly stated. He finds himself back at the carnival, coming full circle to the geek pit. Only this time around, he’s the geek-in-waiting.

A grotesque set of parentheses. Carlisle pays to see his eventual future and then travels far yet going nowhere and gaining nothing.

This is likely to be the case for Don’t Look Up and Nightmare Alley in the Oscar race. I don’t think either has the panache to go toe to toe with the favorite, Power of the Dog.

If either win in the other categories, I think Nightmare Alley has a shot; they aren’t likely to be broadcast. Despite my comments above about scissors and editing, I don’t think cutting the awards for costume design, makeup/hairstyling, etc., is where the cuts needed to take place. Ironic that the prize for editing was axed from Sunday’s broadcast. Movies would be nothing without costumes, makeup, and editing. But you go, ABC, way to problem solve.