Take a couple who deep down are essentially two deceitful people (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) who have made themselves successful at scamming the vulnerable. Add a hyper-pushy FBI agent (Bradley Cooper), who offers them a stay-out-of-jail deal dependent on their trusting each other. Mix in a big-time hood (Robert DeNiro) and a loose-cannon bimbo (Jennifer Lawrence) who both will affect this plot’s outcome in ways in which they are highly aware (DeNiro) and comically unaware (Lawrence). Now take the best director on the planet at blending comedic and dramatic elements (David O. Russell). Give him a real-life 1970s scandal (Abscam), itself stranger than fiction, and have him stir up a stylish, loose take on the scandal as a gateway to an outlandish romp concerned with human ambition, loyalty, and the art of the con. The result? Unrelenting, exhilarating fun and the year’s best time at the movies.
One of the most memorable ensemble casts in recent history seem to be getting such a kick out of out-acting one another it would almost be distracting if Russell himself wasn’t so distinctly front-and-center. Rollicking edits, crazy pans, slo-mo, brilliant song segues– and that’s just the techniques. The real gun in his pocket is in the makeup and costume designs. When is the last time hair so dominated a film? From Bale’s unusual combover to Jeremy Renner’s Jerry Lee Lewis pompadour to Cooper’s hair-curlers-produced ‘doo, there’s hair everywhere. And we haven’t even gotten to the women yet. Lawrence’s beehive makes most beehives you’ve seen before look like crewcuts. Her personality matches her hair perfectly in one of the year’s very best performances. (Let’s hope the idiot reporter who asked her if it was all downhill from here after she won her Oscar last year is watching). As Irving Rosenfeld’s (Bale’s) wife, Rosayln, she’s aware her of husband’s longstanding affair with Sydney Prosser (Adams). At first, she keeps us guessing about just how pissed she is about the whole thing, while issuing Irving her very unique brand of emotional Chinese water torture. Her climactic scene with Adams gave me shudders and goosebumps simultaneously. Let’s just say it’ll catch you by surprise.
Moments earlier, when Robert DeNiro makes his entrance as a reclusive mob boss checking out the veracity of the fake Arab sheikh at the center of the FBI’s sting operation, the rest of the cast seems to take on a new tone, like jazz musicians putting down their instruments out of respect for a master soloist.
More than the sum of its parts (and what parts!), American Hustle both lets you in on its playful exaggerations of both the scandal and the 70s and, then, plays you as well. Not to be outdone by his conniving two leads, Russell manages to stay a step ahead of everybody. Like a good magician, he throws out wonderful diversions (Cooper trying to put the make on Sydney while she deftly keeps him at bay, all the while continually nearly popping out of her various plunging necklines) while the plot moves from one unexpected direction to another. Manipulation never felt so good.
Renner, as Carmine Polito, based on former Camden mayor Angelo Errichetti, adds a lot as a basically good guy who gets somewhat innocently lured in–apparently quite unlike the real Errechetti. Additionally, the real-life Sydney had nothing to do with any of the derring-do. Not to worry. Russell declares at the film’s outset that “some of this actually happened.” If Russell were to have depicted all the victims of Abscam as acting purely out of greed, the film would actually have missed its chance to counterbalance the FBI’s equally ambitious bent, as exemplified by Richie DiMaso (Cooper) character, or lost out on Irving’s surprising core conscience. Remove Sydney and you leave out the film’s fulcrum, its catalytic centerpiece. You’d also be left with a bunch of white guys made a whole lot less interesting once deprived of the sensational female energy in this film.
Some films are not only better once they shed any slavish devotion to the facts surrounding a true story, but they actually are more able to get to the heart of their subject once they embrace their poetic license. Russell’s project, in preferring to be true to his vision of the American Dream in all its harsh and resilient manifestations rather than offer a journalistic reading of history, actually paradoxically renders a better, experiential understanding of that history.