re: Guillermo Del Toro's Excellent "Nightmare Alley" is now streaming on Hulu and HBO Max

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The shrinks office was stunning and I was surprised at her involvement with him overall, and at the end.

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Speculation involving spoilers below:

Cooper's motivation of self destruction is more than good enough to carry a shorter film. His progression moves through three acts in the film in which he:

Killed his alcoholic father (who had probably ignored Cooper's abuse to his mother's minister while consumed by alcohol)

Killed his foster Oedipal father with turpentine in the whiskey bottle (for denying his access to the book of tricks)

And then destroyed himself with alcohol (which Lilith correctly surmised to be the key to his downfall and induced him to drink much like the carnival con artists breaking in their next circus geek).

The movie also hints that Lilith was a prior victim of Grindle and that she therefore orchestrated both Cooper's spiraling self destruction in part to destroy Grindle without regard for the collateral damages that result.

I enjoyed it overall though