After the first five nights of the In The Shade festival, two of the films I watched impressed me the most. These were the opening night film Nightmare Alley by Guillermo Del Toro, and Australian drama Nitram by Justin Kerzel.
Nightmare Alley is a gripping horror noir set in 1940s New York. It follows Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), who goes to a traveling carnival and finds a trick he uses to swindle the New York elite. After becoming more and more money hungry and eager for success, he launches a plan with a mysterious psychologist (Cate Blanchett) to trick an elderly tycoon out of his fortunes, but finds himself in too deep with increasingly difficult schemes.
This is Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature film without any supernatural aspects, which makes it stand out amongst his filmography as a new experiment in storytelling. An adaptation of the 1946 book by William Lindsay Gresham, it perfectly utilises costume and set design to immerse the viewers into the 1940s era and the world of the film. From the beginning, viewers can find themselves entranced into the world of the small traveling carnival from which Carlisle finds his beginnings and meets Molly (Rooney Mara), his love interest throughout the film. The film gets off to a slow start in the first act, but picks up in intensity and pacing as Carlisle and Molly move to inner-city New York and start performing with greater success.
Bradley Cooper’s performance is incredible throughout and really brings the whole film together. Other key actors, such as Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette, also bring beautiful performances to the film and breathe life into their characters. These performances are all essential towards the climax of the film, when there is a sudden change of tone and intensity, culminating in a twisted and beautiful ending and a warning to not give in to greed and malice.
Nitram is a drama set in suburban Australia during the mid-90s. Based on true events, the main character only referred to as ‘Nitram’ (Caleb Landry Jones), is an isolated and frustrated young man who spirals into anger and destruction after a sudden traumatic event.
I went into this film unaware that this was based on true events, which makes the climactic ending even more intense and unnerving. This very character driven film beautifully creates an air of unease and tension throughout, and while it was a slow burn, it is captivating enough to avoid any pacing issues. The performances were incredible, especially those of Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis and Essie Davis. With such a deep character based film, these performances were deeply important to capture and build the drama within the film.
The main plot of this film and the event which it is based around is a significant tragedy, which I won’t mention to avoid spoiling the film. If you wish to find out more about the event, all the information is easily available online with a search of 'Nitram'. I would avoid this before the film for most people, as it would likely detract from the film's ending, but for those who might get triggered by violence, I would recommend preparing yourself. Either way, I would say this film is a definite must-watch for everyone as it is truly a beautiful and brilliant film.
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