SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
SPOILERS AHEAD
When charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) endears himself to clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her has-been mentalist husband Pete (David Strathairn) at a traveling carnival, he crafts a golden ticket to success, using this newly acquired knowledge to grift the wealthy elite of 1940s New York society. With the virtuous Molly (Rooney Mara) loyally by his side, Stanton plots to con a dangerous tycoon (Richard Jenkins) with the aid of a mysterious psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who might be his most formidable opponent yet.
Nightmare Alley Plot Summary and Synopsis
Stanton “Stan” Carlisle burns down his midwestern home and takes a job as a carny with a traveling carnival.
When the carnival geek becomes sick, carnival owner Clem enlists Stan to help him dispose of him. Stan is disturbed at how any man could sink to the level of performing as a geek, living in a cage in squalor and biting off the heads of live chickens to appease the crowd.
Clem explains that he seeks out alcoholic or drug-addicted men with troubled pasts and lures them in with promises of a “temporary” job and opium-laced alcohol. He then uses their dependence to physically and mentally abuse them until they sink into madness and depravity, thus creating a new geek.
He shows Stan where he stores the moonshine, he brews to control some of the carnies but warns him not to mistake it for the wood alcohol he stores nearby.
Stan works with the clairvoyant act “Madame Zeena” and her alcoholic husband, Pete. Zeena and Pete use cold reading and an ingenious coded language system to make it appear that she has extraordinary mental powers, which Pete begins teaching to Stan.
He and Zeena warn Stan not to ever use these skills to continue leading patrons on when it comes to the dead, what they call a “spook show”; they always inform customers afterward that the show is a deception, otherwise people get hurt.
Meanwhile, Stan becomes attracted to fellow performer Molly and approaches her with an idea for a two-person act away from the carnival.
One night, Stan accidentally gives Pete the wrong bottle and the old man dies from consuming wood alcohol. In the aftermath, Stan swears his love for Molly and reiterates his plan to her. She accepts and they leave the carnival behind.
Two years later, Stan has successfully reinvented himself as “The Great Stanton”, a psychic act for the wealthy urban elite of Chicago, along with Molly as his assistant, using Zeena and Pete’s techniques. During a performance, their act is interrupted by psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter, who attempts to expose their code system. Stan’s cold reading allows him to best Ritter, keeping their act safe. He is later approached by the wealthy Judge Harrington, who employed Ritter to test Stan.
He is now convinced of Stan’s abilities and offers to pay him handsomely to allow him and his wife to communicate with their dead son. Despite Molly’s objections to the “spook show,” Stan agrees.
Ritter invites Stan to her office. Knowing he is a con man; she is nevertheless intrigued by his manipulative skill. Through her recorded sessions with her clients, she has accumulated sensitive information about various members of Chicago’s social elite.
Finding themselves to be kindred spirits, she and Stanton begin an affair and they conspire together to manipulate Harrington, with Ritter secretly providing private information to fuel his charade. She also begins therapy sessions with Stan, who reveals his guilt over Pete’s death, and his hatred of his alcoholic father, whom he killed in their home before joining the carnival.
Harrington introduces Stan to the powerful Ezra Grindle. Grindle wishes to speak to his long-lost illegitimate lover, Dory, who died of a forced miscarriage. Despite warnings from Ritter that Grindle is dangerous, Stan begins scamming Grindle and begins drinking.
Molly becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and upon learning of the affair with Ritter, leaves Stan. He begs her to stay, but she refuses, only agreeing to help him one last time. She poses as Dory for Stan’s ultimate act: conjuring Dory from afar for Grindle.
However, he loses control of Grindle, who grabs Molly and reveals himself to be a violent abuser of women, plagued by his guilt over Dory. Upon realizing that “Dory” is a fake, he violently threatens Stan, who kills him.
They flee and Molly leaves Stan for good. Stan goes to Ritter for help but discovers she has been scamming him all along, keeping the money for herself.
She expresses disappointment in realizing that he was nothing more than a base money-driven criminal. She contacts the police and threatens to use her recordings of their sessions as evidence that he is mentally disturbed should he try to implicate her. Stan attacks her, but she shoots him, and he flees.
A wanted man, injured, and with nowhere else to go, Stanton wanders around for years as a hobo, sunk in alcoholism.
Nightmare Alley Ending
At his limit, he tries to get a job at another carnival. The owner turns him away, but at the last minute offers him a drink and a “temporary” job as the new geek. Finally broken, Stan agrees, saying, “Mister, I was born for it,” as he laughs and then begins to sob.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).