thoughts on American Hustle

Christian Bale and Amy Adams star as Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser (though she goes by Edith Greenlee for most of the movie), a couple of con artists who (among other things) get people to put $5,000 down to apply for $50,000 loans, and then never give anyone any money.  An FBI agent named Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) is on to them, and cuts a deal with them to go in on some big scheme to try to take down the mayor (Jeremy Renner) and a couple of congressmen.  The people Richie is trying to take down are too big, and Irving, Sydney, and Richie's boss, Stoddard Thorsen (Louis C.K.), all keep telling Richie that this is all stupid and unnecessary and is going to end badly.  Also, though Irving and Sydney are kind of a couple, he has a wife, Rosalind (Jennifer Lawrence), who he doesn't get along with but who won't divorce him and keeps threatening to take his son away and expose his illegal activities (which she only partly knows about) if he leaves her.

Rosalind is actually a really interesting character; at first you think she's just an annoyance, and she's not really a big part of things, and you don't really know why they cast Jennifer Lawrence or why she's been nominated for so many awards. The thing is, though, that even though she's an annoyance and not directly involved in things, she is loud and talks too much and simply by virtue of her annoying qualities has the potential to ruin everything for everyone.  It's pretty fascinating, and you start to look forward to her appearances onscreen.  She also gets some pretty funny lines/moments.  For example, the mayor, Carmine, gives Irving a microwave (which is a new invention at the time, and which everyone keeps referring to as "the science oven") as a gift, warning him not to put anything metal in it.  Irving passes the warning along to Rosalind, but she ignores this in a pretty funny "I'll put metal in the science oven if I want to put metal in the science oven" kind of way.  Naturally, as anyone who was put metal in their own "science oven" knows, this starts a fire.  Irving, of course, is upset, both because she ignored his directions and because the "science oven" was a gift (I know I'm overusing "science oven" here, but I seriously cracked up any time anyone said the words).  Rosalind turns it around on him, all, "Well, I read an article that it sucks all the nutrients out of your food!  See!  I have the article right here!  What do you think you're doing, bringing in something that sucks the nutrients out of our food and starts fires?  Thank God for me!"  She is A RIDICULOUS PERSON.  I've always thought Jennifer Lawrence was okay before this-- I like the Hunger Games movies but usually find myself talking more about one or more of the supporting characters/actors afterward; I liked The Silver Linings Playbook more than I thought I would but didn't love it-- but she really seems to be having fun here, and I enjoyed her performance.

Bradley Cooper's character, Richie, is also a fairly ridiculous person, and I spent a lot of the movie trying to figure him out, though I don't think his character actually went that deep: he's trying to pull off something way over his head because he wants to be important/escape from his regular life, in which he lives with his mother and has a fiancee he doesn't seem to care about.  He has sort of a "thing" with Amy Adams's character, and at one point he's all, "I love you!  Did you hear that? Yeah, I said that!"  I'm sitting there all, "What? Seriously?  Why?  When did this happen?"  I think it's mainly that he views her has an escape route, which she actually accuses Irving of but is actually true of both men.

Christian Bale and Amy Adams probably give the most consistent performances of the film, but I don't think there's a lot to "get" with either of them, either.  They're con artists.  Irving is conflicted about his family, Sydney/Edith, and the scheme he's gotten wrapped up in.  He doesn't like Richie.  He likes Carmine.  There's...not much beyond that, as far as I can see.  Sydney/Edith loves Irving, pretends to love Richie (and she tells us from the beginning that she's just pretending, so there's not much of a question about that), and you can tell the difference between Sydney and Edith because Edith speaks with a British accent.  I guess my overall assessment of the characters, then (with the exception of Rosalind, who really is kind of a wild card), is that sometimes the nature of their jobs/what they're trying to pull off makes it seem as if they're something they're not, but I don't think any of them really have a lot going on below the surface. 

I don't know.  They're all just kind of a bunch of bad, not-that-interesting people trying to pull off a scheme that almost everyone involved knows is ill-advised.  Like, I generally really like spy/heist TV shows and movies (which I know this is not, but stay with me for a minute) because they are generally about really cool, smart people trying to pull off something complicated and fun-to-watch.  This is just a bunch of seedy people trying to pull something stupid off to improve their own situations.  Did I find parts of it entertaining?  Sure.  Did I care that much about it or get much out of it?  Not really.

On a side note...the sets, costumes, and music are all such that I thought to myself more than once, "The '70s must have been an ugly, horrible time."  I don't think it's fair for me to say that about an entire decade, or anything, especially since I wasn't born until the tail end of it, but I think it's an accurate assessment of the world these characters live in.