Watched: American Hustle
I… I dunno. There was so much posturing in this, and so much construction, that it was sometimes hard to get at the heart of this film. I’ve loved David O. Russell’s previous work (yes, including Silver Linings Playbook), but this ultimately left me a little cold.
Maybe part of the problem is that this is a movie where all the women are beautiful, and all the men are flabby, ridiculous creatures; yes, on the one hand, the female characters in this are brilliantly etched, and even have their own voices (this movie passes the Bechdel test, by the skin of its teeth), but they are also painted by a male libido, all flashes of sideboob and so much classiness that you feel blindsided by it. It’s more of a disappointment because the female characters in this movie are characters - on the page, they come to life, but thrown into a visual medium, it’s immediately clear that there’s a man behind the camera.
All that said, Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence are great in this, as are the rest of the cast - it’s a true ensemble piece, and brings with it the curious sense of satisfaction you get from other ensemble movies, as well as the lack of emotional catharsis. The film ostensibly centers around Christian Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld, but sometimes shifts to Bradley Cooper’s FBI agent Richard DiMasio, and so on, until there’s such a multitude of perspectives that you never quite land with any of them. That’s fine, of course - this film keeps you on your feet, and you don’t feel the 150-minute running time - but it lacks the emotional punch of Russell’s earlier work.
There’s humor to be found in American Hustle, but it’s incidental, an accident of the unfolding events rather than a series of wisecracks. Everything feels wonderfully organic, as Irving struggles to keep control of a scheme that, thanks to the ambitions of Richard, threatens to burst at the seams. You feel the excitement of the high stakes, but none of the fear - everything is told at such a breakneck pace that you never quite peer into the psyche of even Bale’s character.
All that said, it’s hard to figure out what could have made this movie better. You don’t want it to be any longer for fear that it might suffer from being as bloated as Bale’s paunch, but at the same time the characters often feel like placeholders. You’re happy that the right people end up on top by the end, but it’s more of a smile and a shrug than a dab-at-the-eyes moment. It’s a well-told, well-performed caper, but not much more.