Tricks of Life: Old School Drama with a Circus Heart

Is it worth the time?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s melodramas where people speak in grand, sweeping declarations, Tricks of Life is a decent way to spend an evening. If you prefer your pacing tight and your subtext subtle, you’ll probably find the whole thing a bit tedious.

It’s the kind of movie that feels like a stage play taped onto celluloid. You can almost hear the floorboards creaking.

The circus vs. the parlor

The premise is as old as time: rich boy meets circus girl. The parents predictably freak out. It reminded me a little of the frantic energy in Tingeltangel, though here the stakes feel much more rooted in snobbery than in any actual danger.

Gloria Morel is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. She has this way of looking at the camera that makes you feel like she knows exactly how silly the plot is, but she's going to commit to it anyway. It’s charming, honestly.

There is a scene in the second act where the father just stands in the drawing room for what feels like ten straight minutes, lecturing about 'family honor.' I started counting the patterns on the wallpaper behind him. It’s that kind of movie.

Small things I noticed

• The lighting in the circus scenes is surprisingly moody, though someone clearly forgot to focus the lens during the tight shot of the ringmaster.
• The background extras in the street scenes have no idea what they’re doing. One guy in a hat walks past the frame, realizes he’s on camera, and immediately starts speed-walking to get away.
• The music cues are... well, they are loud.

It’s not as chaotic as Alice's Three Bad Eggs, but it shares that same sense of wanting to be everywhere at once. The conflict between the circus world and the high-society mansion feels very manufactured, almost like the writers were just checking boxes on a 'melodrama bingo' card.

I found myself drifting off during the dialogue-heavy segments, but then the circus music would kick back in, and I’d be pulled right back in. It’s a weird, lopsided viewing experience. Not great, but not a total wash either.

There's a moment near the end—no spoilers—where the mother finally breaks character and looks genuinely tired. It’s the most real thing in the whole hour and a half. It made me wonder if she just wanted to go home and have a cup of coffee.

Sometimes, the movie feels like it’s struggling to keep its own plot together. It's not nearly as tight as Blackmail. But it has a certain earnestness that’s hard to hate. It’s not trying to be a masterpiece. It’s just trying to tell a story about a boy who likes a girl who does acrobatics.

Take it for what it is. A relic, sure, but one with a bit of heart buried under all that heavy drapery and 1930s stiff-upper-lip attitude. 🎪