Review: American Hustle

The chemistry between Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper was cemented in our minds after David O’Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook and the thought of all three working on the same project again brought a certain kind of anticipation. However, in American Hustle, a love letter to Martin Scorcese and Paul Thomas Anderson’s work that’s less than poetic - the pair’s equally corruptible lives barely intertwine. The film has a certain surface sheen to it –even if its plot is not completely uncovered and its character development rushed, everything looks great. Despite being nearly two and a half hours, we’re nowhere close to figuring out the bigger picture and perhaps that’s the point in a movie that deals with backdoor deals and government scandals – only a small amount of knowledge is imparted to us about these events in real life. Whilst the deals are the biggest part of the film, the love triangle centring on Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) and Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence) is the real draw.

With captivating and impressive performances from all three, Bale and Adams look mild and meek once Lawrence struts onto the screen. Adams’ character Sydney, Irving’s lover, spends most of the film keeping up appearances and trying to make her fake identity as Lady Edith convincing with the distraction of an impressive amount of sideboob. Rosalyn, Irving’s wife, however is the exact opposite of Sydney, a nail polish enthusiast who’s an accidental pyromaniac and the life of the party. Undoubtedly the star performance, Lawrence puts every inch of her personality into the role. A particularly great moment is Rosalyn drunkenly scrubbing at her counters furiously whilst doing a passionate rendition of Live and Let Die.

But her honesty and tendency to pry in situations that don’t add up make her the potential downfall of all of Sydney and Irving’s schemes. Having already been caught preying on unfortunate souls by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), he makes a  deal that will let them get off free but not before dragging them deeper into their own lies first. Cooper has already played the good authoritative figure gone corrupt in last year’s The Place Beyond The Pines and in both instances; it doesn’t work out so well for his character. Unaware to the depth to which Irving and Sydney (known to him primarily as Lady Edith)’s lies extend, DiMaso is helplessly sucked into their whirlpool of scams and trickery and doesn’t even realise the joke’s on him.

Something that is common throughout American Hustle is the naivety of the majority of its characters. Whether it is for love or money, the charm that oozes out of the pores of these people has a hold on them and they find themselves getting into a lot more trouble than expected. Charm and surface detail dominate the film - the elaborate outfits, coiffed hair and dazzling personalities put in the place of a substantial plotline. There are some captivating scenes within the film but they’re positioned next to needlessly long stretches of dialogue that could have done with a touch of editing. American Hustle may have all the gloss and appearances for award nominations in Oscar season, including an extremely brief cameo from Robert DeNiro, but it feels as if it’s striving for that exact goal too much and cutting corners in what could have been a much more developed film.

Aurora Mitchell

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

After watching both of his films, it's become clear to me that Derek Cianfrance is an auteur that likes to feed his stories to an audience in chunks. If you're reading this review before seeing The Place Beyond The Pines, or even his heartbreaking 2010 Rom-Dram Blue Valentine, then that will mean very little to you. But upon seeing his latest work, it will all make sense. The film has the distinct feeling of being divided into chapters, with the not-so subtle use of a fade to black used to tell the audience "This section of the story is over now. This is the next section beginning." Sure, a lot of films employ this device, to varying degrees of success, but what's so infuriating about it here is that, well, to put it bluntly, some "chapters" are better than others.

The film's first "chapter" opens with and mainly focuses on a subject that it's now clear Cianfrance is very fond of - Ryan Gosling looking tortured, wandering around and smoking. Oh the tragedy of it all. What an unsightly image to be forced upon an audience. Gosling plays Luke, a carnival stunt driver who learns that a previous fling, Romina (a very underused Eva Mendes) has had his child. Feeling a sense of warmth towards his child, most likely due to his own upbringing, something that is only hinted at, he quits the carnival, stays in town and gets a job. Sadly this job is as a bank robber, which causes him to collide with Bradley Cooper's rookie cop. While comparisons to 2011's Drive are inevitable, sadly the two films are very different. While there are moments, such as the bank robberies and Luke's fleeing journeys on his bike that pick up the pace and carry the furious electricity of Drive, the majority of the film uses the slow, reflective pace of Blue Valentine. Basically, there are lots of beautiful shots (the film, similarly to the "young" half of Blue Valentine is filmed on 35mm, a choice that pays off) of the protagonists looking miserable and reflecting on their mistakes.

It's after the denouncement of this first chapter that the film sadly starts to dip, due both to its possibly over-long running time, and quickly formed characters who were are not given much information about. Character-wise, Pines is the very opposite of Blue Valentine - it gave us a full and detailed view of a couple, told us everything about them that there was to know. Here, we are forced mainly to pick up information with exposition. None of the characters in the film are fully formed, and there simply isn't time to get to know them properly as the film is constantly rushing along trying to show us something new.

It seems to me that while Cianfrance is trying to do something interesting, the film is ultimately flawed. The first forty-five minutes or so are absolutely perfect, but the rest of the film struggles to keep up the momentum, or to actually show us anything that interesting. True, the film does pick up again to give us a beautiful and emotional ending, (If filmmakers want to make me sad, all they have to do is stick a Bon Iver track on the end of their film) but it feels like a lot of time has been wasted trying to get us to that point. But really, despite its faults, who can complain about a film that features Ryan Gosling with bleach blonde hair, pensively smoking and feeding ice cream to a baby?

Grace Barber-Plentie