Nightmare Alley (2021) - Movies

This movie looked great, I'll give it that!  And the acting was good, although I'm not sure Bradley Cooper has much to work with until the very end (he's basically a smooth talking jerk for 2+ hours, though Cooper adds some nice little nuances to give the role more depth).   In terms of plot, it was extremely predictable, which can be fine, if all the other elements of the movie work well, and here they mostly do.  But it was pretty clear upfront who was shady and who wasn't, even Cooper's character, which made everyone a bit ... flat.  

Still, I'm on the fence as to whether I buy that Stan would really end up the way he ends up.  

Spoiler

First of all -- why would he trust the femme fatale psychologist to hold onto all the money?   Did his brain fall out of his head at some point?  The entire appeal of her to him was the fact that he knew they were both conniving ... and even if he thought she didn't care that much about money, he should've known not to give her control over his share of their ill-gotten gains.  

Even after all of that happened ... I almost felt like he was too much of a sociopath / survivor to not have come up with some low level hustle rather than end up agreeing to become a geek.  Although I suppose the point was that he was genetically predisposed to become an alcoholic like his father, so his fall was hard and fast.

But come on.  Stan knows from what Clem told him that the geeks are basically tricked into enslavement.  On some level, does he feel he deserves this?  But nothing else in the movie indicated Stan had that much self-reflection, as even his guilt over his father and Pete wasn't particularly deep or convincing.  

So did Molly go back to the carnival?  I'm picturing her wandering around with fake blood on her hands and that ridiculous dress, trying to get back into their hotel suite to get her suitcase and a change of clothes -- hope that worked out for her!    

And did everyone know Clem was basically enslaving the men he turned into geeks (Pete certainly seemed to know what "breaking in a geek" meant, and obviously the guy was being kept in a cage, not joining them in the cafeteria tent between shows, etc.)?  And, like, they just went along with it?  WTF, people??  W   T    F.  

And of course we keep the poisonous alcohol right next to the good alcohol.  Of course we do that.  🙄

I had to LOL at the end credits, with the close-ups on the pickled mutant baby.  You can stop being gross, now, movie!  We get it!  

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