NIGHTMARE ALLEY : Tuesday 25th January 2022.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'NIGHTMARE ALLEY' this week, which is an American neo-noir psychological thriller film Directed, Co-Written for the screen and Co-Produced by Guillermo del Toro whose previous film making credits take in 'Hell Boy', 'Pacific Rim', 'Crimson Peak' and the Academy Award winning 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'The Shape of Water'. This film is based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, and is the second feature film adaptation following the 1947 film starring Tyrone Power. The film has garnered generally positive Reviews and has recovered US$15M in Box Office receipts from its US$60M production budget so far, having been released Stateside in mid-December last year. It has also so far won fourteen awards and been nominated a further seventy-seven times (of which some of those nominations are still awaiting an outcome) from around the awards circuit. 

The film opens up in 1939, and we see Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper, who also Co-Produces here) dragging a bundled up body across the floor of a ramshackle dwelling and dumping that body under the floorboards. He then douses the body and the surrounding room with petrol, strikes a match, and walks out of the rural house perched on a hill as it becomes engulfed in flames. He gets on bus, and sleeps. When he wakes its nighttime and the bus has reached the end of the line. He gets out and walks toward a travelling carnival, ultimately securing a job as an employee (a carny) on that travelling carnival. When the carnivals resident 'geek' becomes ill, the owner Clem Hoately (Willem Dafoe) has Carlisle help him drop off the body at a nearby inner-city Church, on the promise of a steak and eggs dinner. Over dinner, Clem explains that he finds alcoholics or drug addicts, who are often men with a troublesome history, and coaxes them in with promises of a temporary job, somewhere to sleep and regular meals, but gives them alcohol that contains a few drops of opium tincture. He uses their gradual dependence to physically and mentally abuse them until they sink into madness and depravity, thus creating a geek for his carnival. Later that night Clem shows Carlisle where he stores the moonshine he brews to control the other carnies, warning him not to mistake it for the wood alcohol for pickling medical specimens he stores in jars nearby, for that stuff will easily kill a man.

After a lot of fetching and carrying, erecting and dismantling the big carnival tents and sideshows, often in the pouring rain, Carlisle lands a job with clairvoyant act Madame Zeena (Toni Collette) and her alcoholic husband Pete (David Strathairn). Zeena and Pete use an ingenious coded language system, devised by Pete, to make it seem that she has extraordinary mental powers, which Pete begins teaching to Carlisle. Pete and Zeena warn him not to use these skills to continue leading patrons on when it comes to the dead, which they refer to as a 'spook show'. They always tell their customers after the show that it is a deception for fear of people getting hurt. Meanwhile, as Carlisle becomes more and more familiar with their act, and he grows in confidence, he is attracted to fellow performer Molly (Rooney Mara) and approaches her with an idea for a two-person act away from the carnival, using his new found mentalist abilities. 

One night, after Pete asks Carlisle to secure him a bottle of Clem's moonshine, he gives Pete the wrong bottle (possible accidentally) and the old man dies the next morning in Zeena's arms from consuming wood alcohol. In the aftermath, Carlisle swears his love to Molly and reiterates his plan. She accepts, and they leave the carnival behind. Two years later, Carlisle has successfully reinvented himself as 'The Great Stanton', a mentalist act for New York's wealthy ruling class, together with Molly as his assistant, using Zeena and Pete's tried and tested techniques. During a performance, their act is interrupted by psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who attempts to expose their system of code. Stan's line of questioning allows him to gain the upper hand over Ritter, keeping their act safe while publicly humiliating her. He is later approached by the wealthy Judge Kimball (Peter MacNeill), who engaged Ritter to test Carlisle. He is now convinced of Carlisle's abilities and offers to pay him handsomely to allow him and his wife Felicia (Mary Steenburgen) to communicate with their dead son who died in Nomansland during WWII at the age of 23. Despite Molly's objections to the unwritten 'spook show' ruling, Carlisle agrees.

Ritter invites Carlisle to her office. She knows full well that he is a con man, but is nevertheless intrigued by his skills of mental manipulation. Through her recorded sessions with her clients, she has accumulated a wealth of potentially sensitive information about various members of New York's movers and shakers and the rich and famous. Sharing a connection, she and Carlisle begin an affair, and they conspire together to manipulate Kimball, with Ritter secretly providing private and sensitive information to fuel his pretence. She does this on the condition that she can start therapy sessions with Carlisle, based on complete honesty, who reveals his guilt over Pete's death, and his hatred of his alcoholic father, who he killed in their home before joining the carnival. 

Kimball introduces Carlisle to the powerful and very private Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), whose lover, Dory, died of a forced abortion. Despite warnings from Ritter that Grindle is dangerous, Carlisle begins to scam Grindle and starts to drink, having told her previously that he 'never' touches the stuff!. Ritter feeds information to Carlisle, which he supplements by doing his own clandestine investigations, to use against Grindle as revenge for him previously attacking her. She shows Carlisle a scar down her chest and abdomen she received from Grindle. Molly becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and upon learning of the affair with Ritter, leaves Carlisle. He begs her to stay, but she refuses, only agreeing to help him one last time. 

She poses as Dory for Carlisle's ultimate act: manifesting herself as Dory from the other side for Grindle so that he can ask for her forgiveness. However, he loses control of Grindle, who reveals himself to be a violent abuser of many women due to his guilt for Dory. He then clutches hold of Molly wrist before she can exit the escalating out of control scene and realises that his vision of Dory is a fake. Unknown to Carlisle, Grindle's head of personal security, Anderson (Holt McCallany), hears a radio broadcast announcing that Judge Kimball and his wife have been found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, because of Carlisle's promises to Felicia that they would be reunited with their dead son after their own deaths. She had shot dead her husband and then turned the gun on herself. Knowing that Carlisle was recommended to Grindle by the Judge, he goes to check on what was going down between the two.

Upon coming to the realisation that 'Dory' is fake, Grindle becomes enraged and promises to ruin Carlisle. A tussle breaks out between the two men and Carlisle beats him to death with repeated blows to the face, then kills Anderson during their escape by running over him, twice, in their car. As he begins to smash up their car to create the impression that it was stolen, Molly leaves Carlisle for good. Carlisle goes to Ritter for help but discovers she has been scamming him all along, revealing that she wanted revenge for what happened during their initial meeting. She speaks of her disappointment in realising that he was nothing more than a base money-driven petty criminal. She calls the Police and threatens to use her recordings of their sessions as evidence that he is mentally disturbed should he try to implicate her. Ritter shoots Carlisle in the ear, and he tries to strangle Ritter using the telephone cable with the line to the Police still open but as the Police arrive, he flees.

Wanted, injured, with no money, nowhere to go and only the clothes on his back, Carlisle jumps a train and hides behind a wall of chicken coups, as the Police search the carriages but find no evidence of him. He wanders around for years as an aimless alcoholic tramp. At his limit, he tries to get a job as a mentalist at another carnival. The owner (Tim Blake Nelson) turns him away but offers him a drink and a 'temporary' job as the new geek at the last minute, using the same patter that Clem recounted to him all those years previously. Carlisle accepts, laughing out, 'I was born for it'. Seemingly aware of his fate, his laughs turn to tears.

In 'Nightmare Alley' Director Guillermo del Toro has here hung up his all too familiar horror fantasy tropes and traded these in for a psychological melodramatic offering that is bathed beautifully in the colours and images of the era in which the film is set with the emphasis on meticulous detail, whilst still retaining the filmmaking DNA that del Toro is so renowned for. Cooper here shines in his role as the fractured tormented soul with regrets about his past 'indiscretions' but willing to brush these under the carpet for his share of the limelight and all the trappings of his success only for it to all come crumbling down around him that ultimately brings him full circle. And the other A-listers in supporting roles including Blanchett's femme fatale, Collette, Dafoe, Mara, Strathairn and Jenkins all give top notch performances that lend an authenticity to the early 1940's setting, some more menacingly than others. This is a film of life on the road as a travelling carny, of dark and stormy nights, of misdirection and deception, of regret and redemption and of murder most foul all wrapped up in a morality tale that transcends the ages. My only gripe is that of the 150 minute running time, del Toro could easily have shaved twenty-minutes off without sacrificing the story or his undeniable artistic integrity. 

'Nightmare Alley' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

KAJILLIONAIRE : Tuesday 3rd November 2020.

'KAJILLIONAIRE' which I saw at my local independent cinema earlier this week, is an M-Rated American crime comedy drama film Directed and Written by Miranda July in only her third film making outing following 2005's 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' and 2011's 'The Future'. This film saw its World Premier screening at the Sundance Film Festival back in late January this year, was released Stateside in late September before going on VoD in the US from mid-October, having taken US$973K so far and garnered generally favourable Reviews. 

Two con artists, Robert Dyne (Richard Jenkins) and his wife Theresa (Debra Winger) have spent 26 years training their only daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) to swindle, scam and steal at every turn in Los Angeles. The parents treat their daughter more as an accomplice to their petty thefts and scams rather than as a daughter with the family taking pride on being skimmers and scammers and living on the bare minimum income, unlike other people who worship money and try to be 'kajillionaires'. Whatever money they do scam gets split evenly three ways, and that's the way it's always been for as long as Old Dolio can remember. 

After a spate of bad luck, the family owe three months of back rent on their US$500 a month apartment, which is actually an abandoned and dilapidated office space attached to a soap factory. Fortunately, for them the owner of the soap factory, Stovik Mann (Mark Ivanir) and the adjacent office space seems fairly understanding and amenable to the family coming up with the back payments by this Friday, which then becomes Friday in two weeks time. 

This seems to be largely because the office space is in such a state of disrepair and because every day soap bubbles leak from the ceiling down the walls, which the family of three have to mop up with buckets and a tarp covering the floor. However, as time passes the family are unable to come up with rent money owing, so Old Dolio hatches a scam where they will travel to New York City, using tickets they won in a contest, and her parents will take her luggage, allowing Old Dolio to claim the airline has lost it, and so receive a US$1,575 insurance claim payout, which in turn will cover the rent. 

Following a fairly uneventful trip, Old Dolio and her parents return home on their scheduled flight. She is surprised to find them chatting and laughing with Melanie Whitacre (Gina Rodriguez), a young woman sat in the seat next to them, and even more surprised when they reveal their scam to her. At the baggage claims desk Old Dolio completes the necessary formalities for making a claim for her lost luggage, only to be told that it could take up to six weeks to process. She returns home and finds Melanie there too. 

Melanie proves to be more than accepting to their way of life and tells the family that she is an opticians assistant. She introduces them to her elderly and seemingly trusting clients, whom they rip off for small sums of cash in the form of cheques on which Old Dolio is adept at forging signatures. This goes awry when a dying man asks the family to pretend to be his family as he passes away alone at home. Old Dolio is shaken up by this experience, and is hurt when her parents immediately rush to comfort Melanie while ignoring Old Dolio herself. Using the money they have scammed from two of Melanie's aged clients, Robert decides to purchase a US$9,000 hot tub with all the bells and whistles for just a US$100 down payment. Back home, realising that Melanie has served her purpose as a partner in their schemes, the parents decide to initiate a threesome with Melanie in the hot tub (which is not plumbed in) which she reacts badly to. They are interrupted by Old Dolio, who is heartbroken to hear her mother call Melanie 'hun', which Theresa has never called her daughter by that term of endearment, and offers her the entire travel insurance money (which has subsequently come through in the form of a cheque from the insurance company) to do the same to her. Theresa refuses, but Melanie offers to call Old Dolio various terms of endearment in exchange for the US$1,575 which is accepted and so off the pair go to Melanie's apartment.

Instead of simply calling Old Dolio 'hun', Melanie offers the 'full-service' treatment to fulfil the emotional requirements which Old Dolio's parents had failed to meet down through the years. Some time later there is a knock on the door, and Old Dolio's parents have left her seventeen birthday presents outside the door to Melanie's apartment, with a note promising the eighteenth one at dinner the next evening. Old Dolio and Melanie attend dinner in an upmarket restaurant where Old Dolio's parents present her with a gold necklace and pendant and Robert stands up and gives an impassioned tearful speech and swears they will change their uncaring unloving hurtful ways

After their dinner, they return to Melanie's apartment and tuck Old Dolio into bed. Melanie, who has hidden the US$1,575 cash from the insurance money in her fuse box, remarks to Old Dolio that if her parents have stolen the money they must be monsters, while Old Dolio says if the money is still there, it is proof her parents have changed. She also comes up with a third possibility in that her parents will have left behind US$525, her third of the cash, signifying that this is the only way they can demonstrate their love for her. To Melanie and Old Dolio's surprise, the cash is all there.

The next day, Old Dolio wakes and goes into the lounge room to discover that Melanie has been completely robbed, with the entire furnishings of the apartment gone, except for the possessions in the bedroom. The only things remaining are Old Dolio's seventeen presents spread out on the floor where they were left, and, the US$1,575 is gone too. Realising the gifts are refundable because they all came from the same shop and all of the gifts still have the price tags intact with the barcode, Old Dolio and Melanie take them to the store to be returned. The total price of the items is US$485.05, until Melanie notices the gold chain and pendant hanging around Old Dolio's neck. She removes it and hands it over too for a refund, bringing the total to US$525, Old Dolio's share of the insurance money. Old Dolio and Melanie kiss as the film fades to black.

'Kajillionaire' is a quirky, whacky, unconventional and at times quite bizarre coming of age petty crime comedy film that poses more questions than it answers. For example, why did they choose to raise their only daughter without any connection, emotional attachment or endearment other than the purely transactional; why did a nice girl like Melanie stoop down to the depths of this family of no-hope grifters; why do the family live in a run down office building kipping in sleeping bags on the floor between the partitions and with soap suds running down the walls every day, and why give you only child a moniker like Old Dolio FFS???? I was frustrated by this film that goes round and round in circles until the emotional payoff at the end which felt undercooked and fails to deliver any real sense of closure. And, the film is short on laughs too. Wood is on top form here and is barely recognisable as the slant shouldered, track suit wearing, long haired and mumbling Old Dolio, and both Jenkins and Rodriguez more than hold their own in their supporting roles, but Winger is lost in the mix and for the most part sits on the periphery with little by way of contribution. One couple sat in the theatre with me at the time of my viewing walked out within the first twenty minutes never to return, which is something you don't see very often and I guess tells me that this film isn't for everyone, a fact also reinforced by the chatter I overheard as I was walking out from a group who had also sat through the film. 

'Kajillionaire' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE SHAPE OF WATER : Tuesday 13th February 2018.

'THE SHAPE OF WATER' which I finally caught earlier this week, has had much written about it already, has been hailed as one of the years best films by many Critics, has garnered a truck load of award wins and nominations, and has taken US$75M at the Box Office from its rather modest budget of just US$20M. The film Premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in late August where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film in competition, and it screened too at TIFF in September before opening in the US in early December. Praised universally for its strong performances, production design, storyline, Direction and musical score, the film was Co-Written for the screen by Guillermo del Toro based on his own idea for the story, Co-Produced and Directed by him too. So far 'The Shape of Water' has picked up 84 award wins and 251 nominations, including thirteen yet to be announced Academy Awards, twelve also yet to be announced BAFTA Awards, as well as winning two Golden Globes and being nominated for five others; two SAG Awards nominations; three International AACTA Award nods; two Satellite Award wins and another eight nominations. Not a bad tally at all!

The film opens with Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) waking up, bathing, fixing herself a packed lunch, polishing her shoes and catching a bus to work from her apartment above a movie theatre. She clocks on at midnight in the secret Government laboratory somewhere in Baltimore during the Cold War era of the early 1960's where Elisa works as a cleaner. Elisa we learn early on is mute, unable to speak but able to hear perfectly. She communicates using sign language. She has three parallel scars on either side of her neck, which she has had since childhood - possibly the cause of her being mute, but the reasons for the scars is a mystery. She seems to have only two friends in the world - her neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins) - a gay advertisement illustrator who was let go by his former employer for reasons that are unknown but he still gets contract work from his connections there. And then there is Zelda Fuller (Octavia Spencer) - a co-worker and partner in mop and broom pushing, who looks out for Eliza and acts as her interpreter in the workplace.

While going about the cleaning rounds, the facility takes receipt of a top secret casket in which is contained some kind of creature immersed in water. Elisa glimpses it momentarily before the casket is removed, and she is asked to leave the room. Later, a mystery figure appears and introduces himself as Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) to the pair of cleaners while they are cleaning the gents toilet. He takes a nonchalant leak while the pair chat to him, and as he leaves he takes his cattle prod with him which he left on the sink, dripping blood, while he relieved himself. He thanks the ladies for their time, the conversation and bids them farewell. It turns out that Strickland captured the creature from some South American river and spent months in bringing it back to Baltimore for scientific analysis. Soon afterwards alarm bells start ringing and Strickland is seen emerging from the room bleeding badly clutching his hand. Senior officials order the cleaners into the room and give them twenty minutes to mop up all the blood on the floor. While doing so Elisa retrieves two severed fingers (Strickland's) and drops them into a spent brown paper bag containing the remnants of her lunchtime sandwich.

Letting curiosity get the better of her, Elisa investigates the mysterious creature further, gaining access to the room where it is being held, under the auspices of her cleaning routines. She discovers that the creature is a humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones) half man half lizard type and over time she and it grow close. She brings it eggs to eat which he likes, plays music which he appreciates, and attempts to communicate using her sign language which the creature quickly learns to imitate.

Enter General Frank Hoyt (Nick Searcy) who orders Strickland to vivisect the creature and learn from it what he can. Strickland has a dislike for the creature and taunts it with his cattle prod for pleasure - enjoying it's reaction to the pain and watching it bleed. Standing by and keeping a watchful eye on these events as they unfold is Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg) one of the Scientists within the facility. He is secretly a Russian spy, and he urges Strickland not to operate on the creature as there is so much to be learned by keeping it alive. However, concurrently, Hoffstetler is ordered by his Russian superiors to euthanise the creature.

Elisa overhears Strickland's orders to dispense with the creature and convinces Giles to help her free it. At first he refuses, but comes around to her way of thinking when he sees just how much the creature means to her. Hoffstetler meanwhile, learns of Elisa's plan to free the creature, and offers his help. Zelda too joins the escape plan. Ultimately their plan is successful, but only just, with Giles driving off the premises in a laundry van with Eliza and the creature huddled in the back as it is riddled by bullets as Strickland gives chase. He has however, no idea who the perpetrators of the cunning escape plan are, believing it to be the work of a gang of well organised men, probably pesky Ruskies!

Back at her apartment, Elisa keeps the creature in her bathtub and uses some form of water treatment compound supplied by Hoffstetler that needs to be changed every three days, plus a good dose of salt. She plans to release the creature into the nearby canal which flows through to the sea when the rains come and the water level rises. This is a few days from now. She marks the date of her planned release on a wall calendar. Meanwhile, Strickland interviews Elisa and Zelda but they claim to know nothing and sit across the table from him in all innocence. Elisa's mute status proving a real advantage here.

Back at the apartment Giles is maintaining a watchful eye on the creature, but dozes off to sleep. He awakes to find the creature eating one of his cats, and startled the creature makes a bolt for the door, and in so doing slashes Giles arm, resulting in profuse bleeding. Giles alerts Elisa and she quickly discovers the creature in the cinema below where she lives, and escorts him back to the apartment. The creature lays his hands on Giles head and his slashed arm. The next day Giles is surprised to see that his hair is growing back on his head, and the wound to his arm has healed without a trace of the prior injury. Elisa and the creature become romantically and emotionally involved.

Hoyt is becoming increasingly agitated by Strickland's lack of traction in recovering the creature. He delivers an ultimatum to do so within 36 hours or else suffer the consequences of being wiped off the face of the earth as though he never existed. Meanwhile, Hoffstetler is told that his planned extraction is scheduled for two days hence. As Hoffstetler waits to meet up with his colleagues for the extraction, they are tailed by Strickland who shoots the two senior Russian Agents dead, but not before they popped a few bullets into Hoffstetler. In his dying moments and in the pouring rain, Strickland tortures Hoffstetler for information regarding the gang who allegedly freed the creature. Hoffstetler tells him that it was not a gang, but the cleaners, and then he dies from his wounds. Strickland barges in on Zelda's home and threatens her and her husband. Her husband, terrified for his life, advises that Elisa has been keeping the creature at her apartment. He drives over to Elisa's place, breaks the door down but finds no sign of anyone. Scouting around the apartment looking for clues as to their whereabouts, he spies the hand written note on the wall calendar, for today is the planned day of the creatures release into the canal.

At the canal, down by the waters edge Giles and Elisa bid farewell to the creature. Strickland pulls up in his car and attacks all three of them, pumping two bullets into the chest of the creature and one into Elisa's stomach. They fall down motionless side by side. By now the Police have arrived accompanied by Zelda. Within a few moments, the creature is standing, having self-healed. He walks up to Strickland and with a single swipe of his hand, slices open his throat. The creature picks up the limp body of Elisa and jumps into the canal with her. As they gradually sink, the creature heals her wounds and transforms the scars of either side of her neck into gills. The pair of unlikely lovers are presumed to have lived happily ever after.

This is an engaging Science fantasy dramatic love story that has heart, emotion, danger and intrigue all in equal measure all rolled up in stunning performances from Hawkins, Jenkins, Jones, and Shannon especially who are almost faultless in their roles. Added to this the production values are top notch and del Toro's creative flair continues to demonstrate his unmatched ability to surprise and delight his audience with a fresh and new approach to other worldly old stories of fairy tales and horror, just as he has done here with 'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' influences. 'The Shape of Water' is a rich immersive beautifully realised film in every sense, matched only by his earlier 'Pan's Labyrinth' and certainly well worth the price of your ticket and worthy of its numerous award wins and nominations - you won't be disappointed.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-