WIG REVIEW: NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Another Oscar bait movie, another remake of the damned!!! West Side Story did not need to be remade but actually wurqed - this movie also did not need to be remade and fully lived up to its title. IT’S A NIGHTMARE! It is also very VERY long and I watched all of it so you don’t ever have to. But what about the wigs? Let’s discuss.
Let me begin by saying: I DO NOT LIKE BRADLEY COOPER UNLESS HE IS PLAYING A 70S ASSHOLE. Definitely my enjoyment of this movie was affected by the fact that I truly did not care about him, his character, whoever he might have killed in the first moments of his movie and then set a house ablaze, and certainly not his penis. THIS IS A YEAR FOR DICKS and you almost kind of see his in this early scene in a bath if that is something you remotely care about (I DO NOT). I do, however, support Toni Collette in most things, and especially this wig! It has a nice 30s wave and texture and I wish had not been subjected to Bradley Cooper or any of his body parts.
Anyway, this movie is all carnie horrors from the getgo - tortured souls, tortured babies, tortured people, tortured chickens! It’s a lot and Guillermo del Toro clearly wants to shock and awe but the only thing I was shocked by is that NO ONE TOLD ME DAVID STRATHAIRN WAS IN THIS MOVIE YES!!!! His old lady is Toni Collette and their carnie deal is basically as fake clairvoyants: lying to people about familial dead ghosts. IT’S A LIVING! Bradley learns all he can from them and then MURDERS DAVID STRATHAIRN TO TAKE HIS COOL JOB AND IF I DIDN’T ALREADY HATE YOU BRADLEY COOPER UGHHHHHHHH.
He also charms Rooney Mara who has kind of a dumpy wig at first but does a really cool carnie trick where she electrocutes herself and man - people were really into paying to see other people get hurt in the 30s. What a time!
Rooney and Bradley leave the carnie life behind to cultivate a high class fake clairvoyant act. And after 2 years it works! They are making BANK lying to people about ghosts and wow maybe I picked the wrong profession. Rooney’s wig gets an upgrade! Bradley’s hair is still as slimey as he is but since he’s playing a career conman I guess it makes sense but also: WHO CARES. How he manages to actually psych people into believing him is never really explained and is also basically the plot of the USA show Psych except this movie is not funny at all and also endless.
2 hours (or maybe 2 days?) into this movie, Cate Blanchett shows up as a vamp/psychologist who thinks Bradley is a liar and duh she’s right but then they team up to defraud a bunch of rich assholes? Anyway, this wig isn’t bad and I definitely wanted to live in every interior she inhabited. Still, her motivations are so murky and everything is so boring at this point that like truly, no thanks.
MARY FUCKING STEENBERGEN shows up as a bereaved mother and again - this wig is very servable but deserved to be in a better movie? This is around when Bradley’s character gets really greedy about lying to rich people about ghosts and it ends in a murder/suicide because sure?
AND THEN! Rooney Mara and her slightly longer but still very boring wig try to escape the clutches of Bradley’s nonsense (and blatant cheating on her with Cate Blanchett in a weird Carol reunion no one wanted) but somehow agrees to one more con in which she has to appear as the dead lover of rich asshole Richard Jenkins.
This is where shit really just turns into a Guillermo del Toro nightmare nonsense fest and all logic - wig and otherwise- go out the window. In this scene in which Rooney appears as this fake ghost, she has to both cover herself in fake blood AND wear a wig for reasons unknown. WHY!!! She wears a wig in a turn of the century updo and then quickly removes it to run away from Richard Jenkins but like - WHY DID YOU NEED A WIG? Your hair was the same color and length of this ghost lady - just use bobby pins???? The wigs up until this point were fine but this plot point turned the tides. I love a wig on wig reveal but THIS ONE IS UNNECESSARY AND STUPID! Then again, this whole movie is unnecessary and stupid.
VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ
