In honor of the upcoming Academy Awards, A few thoughts on one of the most celebrated films of the year.
As hard as I tried to avoid the low hanging fruit that are the possible puns connected to David O. Russell’s latest offering, American Hustle, I simply couldn’t. They are so low and plentiful that you practically stumble over them leaving the theater. To be clear, this is not a good film. And it’s actually the kind of film that makes me angry. It gets my annual “Emperor’s New Clothes Award.” This is presented each year to the really average or below average film that, because of the cache and pedigree of its associated talent tends to render it immune to criticism. Simply put, nobody is willing to admit that it sucks. Previous recipients include Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” and Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.”
What is perhaps even more interesting than the film itself, (an overly theatrical re-hash of a pedestrian tale a congressional bribe-taking from the 70’s known as Abscam) was the marketing of this film and the business of movie marketing in general.
It seems these studios have not only become masters at the art of marketing their products (Ron Burgundy anyone? Or have you had enough?) but they seemed to have mastered an even more subtle and insidious art as well. The ability to convince you that a film is better than it is before you even walk into the theater, dare I say brainwashing you into seeing a different film than the one they made. It seems that these days you now have the choice of two different kinds of glasses to watch your movie through; 3-D and Rose-Colored.
The trailer for American Hustle was a series of incredibly seductive images of glamorous movie stars paired with incredible music leaving you with the take-away that Russell had made a film that was part Boogie Nights, part Goodfellas. But the truth of the matter is that American Hustle couldn’t hold Dirk Diggler’s… you know what. Or mine for that matter. The film was a disjointed mess. The plot centers around FBI agent Richie DiMaso (played by Bradley Cooper, who is actually quite good and delivers more than a perfunctory movie-star turn) who enlists the services of “expert” con-artists Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser (played by Christian Bale and Amy Adams) to help him set up a sting to ensnare some corrupt Congressmen on the take. Irving and Stacy are essentially drafted into indentured servitude by Agent DiMaso who recently busted them and coerces them into plying their skills in the sting in exchange for not being arrested and charged. As the story stumbles along you start to wonder why the F.B.I. wouldn’t facilitate the sting using their own undercover agents who would be smart and professional and infinitely more manageable. Or, if these con artist were so essential to the operation because of their extraordinary “expertise,” how is it that Agent DiMaso was so easily able to bust them in the first place? There are a lot of questions like this that start ambling through your mind while you watch this film, but they seemed to evaporate as quickly as they materialize because as the film continues to plod along you simply stop caring about any of them and you start thinking about more important things like, “Hmm, I hope I remember to get my parking ticket validated.” Or, “I wonder when Season 6 of Breaking Bad is gonna be available on Netflix. I don’t wanna pay for it on Vudu, but I’m not sure I can wait much longer!!”
And while American Hustle is a mess, that’s not always the end of the world. Sometimes even messy films, through the strength of a spectacular performance (like Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York) or the strength of great dialogue are still able to deliver a measure of entertainment. The sad truth about American Hustle is that it’s boring. I know, right? The last thing you would’ve suspected. I could’ve left at anytime and not felt like I missed anything. I stayed only because of my movie-going companion who, ironically, told me she would’ve walked out as well were it not for me.
Amongst the myriad of forgettable aspects of this film, American Hustle has one great mark of distinction. It was, perhaps, the most self-aware film I’ve ever seen. From the clothes to the hair to the narrative style. every frame seemed to scream, “Look how important and fabulous the work we’re doing is!” And no one screamed that any louder than Jennifer Lawrence.
I’m not sure that I recall an instance of someone becoming a global superstar as quickly as Jennifer Lawrence. And there is no one more aware of this newly established status than Jennifer Lawrence herself. And this is also apparent to anyone who has seen any of her recent interviews. And to anyone who has seen her last two performances, it seems pretty clear that it has had a detrimental effect on her work. While both performances are passable (because at her core she is a very talented young woman) neither seem to have the raw and magnetic quality that brought her to our attention in the first place. There is a moment in the film (that can also be found in the trailer) where her character brashly saunters through the room in a slinky dress and utters the line “Are those the guys you guys are afraid of? They look like just the kind of guys to buy me a drink!” If you were to freeze-frame that moment you can see that there is absolutely nothing behind her eyes in that moment except just how much she loves that moment. And that line. It reminded me of the moment in Moonstruck when Cher (who gives an otherwise outstanding performance) responds to Nicholas Cage telling her that he loves her by saying, “Snap out of it!” Great line, bad moment. And lately Jennifer Lawrence has been accumulating more than a few of those bad moments. She seems to be falling victim to a degree of self-awareness that can only come from knowing that every eye in the room is on you at every moment of every day. And when your entire world undergoes the kind of drastic change that superstardom brings, it has the effect of changing who you are and, as a result, the kind of work you do. And that change is almost never for the better. Jennifer Lawrence isn’t the first example of this, just the latest. It took 30 years for Jane Fonda’s superstardom to destroy her work and it seems at this rate Jennifer Lawrence might be looking at 30 months.
From the looks of some of the blurbs that are being used to market this film as well as the eye-popping Metacritic score, it is pretty clear that I am in the minority regarding the merits of American Hustle. And on second thought, the problem with this film might not be that the Emperor has no clothes. The fact is, this Emperor is actually fully clothed. But sadly for us, the clothes look like a pastiche of sartorial puke pilfered from a middle-school production of Superfly T.N.T.