Nightmare Alley review — too long, too bland, too derivative

★★☆☆☆
Production designer Tamara Deverell (Crash, Mimic) has excelled herself with the lavish sets she has constructed for this stylish noir from the director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water). You’ll spend much of the movie drooling over the penthouse suite where psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) practises, or marvelling at the art deco hotel room of hero and celebrity mentalist Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper). Equally, you’ll flinch from the claustrophobic carnival shacks where we learn of Carlisle’s early days and his relationship with doe-eyed “electricity manipulator” Molly (Rooney Mara).

Which is nice. Because there’s little else in this drastically overstretched narrative (150 minutes!) to hold any attention beyond a cursory awareness that, yes, we’re watching an oddly literal