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Essay: "American Hustle" (2013)
American Hustle is a 2013 film directed by David O. Russell starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner. Nominated for 10 Oscars, this film may be the most fun out of all of David O. Russell’s works. You can be a hustler, you can be hustling, you can have hustled, and you can hustle. All of the main characters fit this term in more ways than one. American Hustle’s plot revolves around a group of characters with various relationships to each other.
Their individual hustling habits influence those relationships and themselves.The relationship between Irving and Sydney is the most important in the film, and also the most pure. Throughout the film they have a “no bullshit” rule which they strictly adhere to. In the beginning of the film, their relationship is established through dolly shots, which enhance their process of falling in love. Whether the dolly shots are in or out depend on if the shot is for the benefit of Irving, Sydney, or the audience. This is particularly evident in the dry cleaner’s scene when they are trying on clothes in the vault. When the pair get busted by Richie, the tides turn. However, even when Sydney and Irving stall their relationship, they still care about each other enough to keep the operation from going down the toilet. The emotional separation between Sydney and Irving is open to various interpretations. Sydney pursues a relationship with Richie after she tells Irving her plan because she is “pissed at [him].” However, that completely goes against their “no bullshit” rule. Sydney is also very quick to throw Richie under the bus in their final hustle. That hustle frames Richie for potentially stealing two million dollars of taxpayer money: that is no small predicament. At the end of the film when Irving tells Sydney that he is “glad to have [her] back,” it sounds as if they had actually separated for the majority of the film. Establishing how important their relationship is in the beginning of the film helps the audience empathize with Irving, just hoping he and Sydney will be happy together. Because of this emphasis, it is possible to conclude that Sydney and Irving were together the whole time, but were so deep in their operation with Richie that they had to go undercover even from themselves. Sydney even says to Irving, “I was never going to leave you.”
Sydney plays her own hustle to everyone in the movie except Irving. She had all of her records changed from birth to become Edith Greensley. She uses a fake accent, which is actually quite terrible, to hide her true identity from people. This is how we know when she is pulling the “fake bullshit.” It’s not until Richie wants to take advantage of her after the meeting with the mafia that she tells him who she really is. She is desperate to get out of the situation because she knows that if the operation falls through the mafia will kill her and the people she cares about. When almost all of her hope is gone, she drops the accent and tries to be as real as possible. When this angers Richie, Irving walks in (the shot is also from his P.O.V.) and talks through the situation. Richie is confused at how Irving would know the real “Edith.” That is also when the audience realises that Sydney has been real with Irving all along. Even if Sydney has no doubts about her feelings toward Irving, the director hustles the audience in that direction.
Richie is addicted to hustling. His first hustle is potentially when he busts Irving and Sydney at their office, London Associates. He met Edith for two lunches and they got on really well. When Richie meets Irving and Edith at London Associates, Irving can sense that there is something wrong about the situation. When Sydney takes the check, Richie’s cover is blown. The next time we see him is in Edith’s interrogation cell. This scene tells a lot about Richie’s personality: it shows how untrustworthy he can be. He hustles the people around him, but then claims he doesn’t care who knows that he likes Edith. He whispers, “I like you.” Then he glances over to the mirror, covers his mouth, and says “I like you” again. Then he drops the hand, shrugs, and says, in all seriousness, “I like you.” Why go through all that trouble? It is only when Richie walks out of the room that we find out that Irving is the person on the other side of the mirror. Richie uses this situation to strike a deal with Irving: four busts and their names are cleared. Irving and Sydney end up taking the initial deal, but Richie is greedy for more. He keeps adding hustles to his hit list. Eventually the trio goes after Congressmen and members of the Senate on grounds of corruption which they manufactured. None of the AbScam busts would have happened if Richie hadn’t employed Irving and Sydney to set up the elaborate Sheikh hoax. Throughout the entire film, Richie is a hustling machine until Irving and Sydney right Richie’s wrongs and pull off their last hustle.
Even Carmine Polito is not a saint. His intentions are pure and he is deeply passionate about helping the people, but he is also a politician. He knows that often times the only way to get things done is to bend the rules, sometimes unethically. The only reason that Carmine helps to expedite the Sheikh’s citizenship is to rebuild Atlantic City and brings jobs, commerce, and tourism to the economy. He is not a fake and genuinely wants to do some good. Sometimes doing good means doing business with bad people. The Mob are the only people that Carmine is visibly afraid of. Even his wife, Dolly, becomes careful in their presence. What makes Carmine different is that he makes real relationships with people. He almost cries when he finds this great opportunity to help his community. He is an all around nice guy even if he hustles the dirty way behind closed doors.
We prepare to view a film with individual associations based on life experience. This is very true when it comes to interpreting the character of Rosalyn Rosenfeld. Irving calls her “the Picasso of passive-aggressive karate. She was better than any con artist [he’d] ever met including [himself].” Irving admitting this is very telling of exactly who Rosalyn is. This is especially true because this is the first time the audience meets Rosalyn. She is definitely a little crazy, maybe even slightly alcoholic, but she knows what her endgame is and how she can achieve it. She plays the people around her: she tells Irving that she can take Danny if he tries to leave her, she confronts the Mob when she sees that everyone else is afraid of them, and she sends Pete to scare Irving into developing a plan. When Irving returns home, furious, Rosalyn tells him:
“I knew that Pete was going to go over there and knock some sense into your head. I've been reading this book Irving. It's by Wayne Dyer. The Power of Intention. And my intention in sending Pete over to you was that so you could come up with this plan. So, you're welcome.”
Rosalyn may be neurotic and manipulative, but she is not stupid. Any woman can attest to the fact that she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s got drive. Rosalyn doesn’t do the things she does just to screw over Irving and Edith out of spite: she is very selfish. She wants to be supported financially and gain some degree of emotional stability. That’s what she got when Irving married her and adopted Danny, and when a better offer came along she asks for a divorce from Irving in favor of Pete, even though she says earlier in the film that she would never get a divorce. You have to admit, if Rosalyn hadn’t sent Pete to Irving, Irving never would have come up with the plan for his final hustle and the film would not have resolved like it does. She hustles to benefit herself at other people’s expense.
The only person in the film that does not hustle is Richie’s boss, FBI agent Stoddard Thorsen. Stoddard is a paper-pushing, play-by-the-rules type of bureaucrat who doesn’t take risks, and for good reason. He is straight with everyone he deals with, especially Richie. Stoddard’s theme throughout the film is the ice-fishing story he tries to tell Richie. Stoddard is from Michigan, and when he was a child his brother decided to go ice-fishing in October instead of November. He never finishes the story, but the audience is lead to believe that the moral may be beware of the consequences when you break the rules.
All of the characters, save Stoddard, are hustlers. It’s what they do and it’s what they know. Not everyone gets a happy ending, but the audience is taken for a nice ride. The way each person hustles is representative of their personality and essential to the nature of their relationships with other people. Irving and Rosalyn’s relationship wouldn’t be what it is if she wasn’t so manipulative. Sydney and Irving’s relationship wouldn’t be what it is if they both weren’t so emotionally damaged. Edith and Richie’s relationship wouldn’t be what it is if they weren’t so obsessed in their goals, and Carmine and Irving’s relationship wouldn’t work if they didn’t have something to learn from each other. No one really wins from hustling. Irving and Sydney give up their former lives in order to gain the life they imagine together. Rosalyn ends up divorced, in a neck brace, and dating a mobster. Carmine is in jail. Richie is no one. Being a fish out of water does not turn out well for anyone.
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Rated R. Runs 2 hr 18 min.
Directed by David O. Russell. Written by David O. Russel and Eric Warren Singer. Edited by Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy, and Crispin Struthers. Cinemtogrpahy by Linus Sandgren. Starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Jeremey Renner, and Louis C. K.