Amsterdam (2022, David O. Russell)
Nov 13, 2022 1:19:49 GMT
Martin Stett and rhodoraonline like this
Post by JangoB on Nov 13, 2022 1:19:49 GMT
At first I was at least partially sure that the less than stellar critical response to this movie had more to do with DOR himself rather than the quality of the project... but after finally seeing it I absolutely understand where the negativity came from. It's all a bit of a mess.
As one of the few (or maybe the only one?) resident fans of American Hustle I'm especially disappointed by this because Amsterdam seems like DOR's attempt to recapture that sprightly ensemble spirit after the one-heroine focus of Joy but unfortunately doesn't possess any of the energy, vivid characterization or fun of the 2013 film. The idea is sort of the same - a bunch of peculiar characters with a real-life event as the backdrop for their interactions. But the crucial difference is that the world of Amsterdam is filled with people who aren't really that interesting and whose relationships aren't really that engaging. There's not too much to these characters besides their quirks and you can only go so far on nothing else but that. There's an incredible amount of big famous actors in the piece and yet few of them actually pop off the screen. One thing I didn't expect the film to be is boring and yet that's exactly what I started feeling about halfway through it. There's a recurring motif of the main trio having their personal musical happy place which they call "nonsense song" and frankly I think those two words perfectly describe a lot of the dialogue we get to sit through. It was especially clear to me when our heroes met Rami Malek and sat down to have a chat with him - not only did the scene seem to go on for hours but it also felt like they were just babbling on about nothing with occasional bursts of plot-relevant stuff thrown in there to drive the movie forward. And there were quite a few scenes of that same nature. Unlike the films that DOR made in the 2010s, neither the characters of Amsterdam nor their conversations gave me much reason to be actively invested in the on-screen proceedings. It was all just a bit flat. Perhaps DOR shouldn't have taken this long of a break between movies. He seems to have forgotten how to write'em.
Not even the visuals do much to elevate the film despite DOR going so far as to end Emmanuel Lubezki's break and hire him as the cinematographer. Russell isn't an image-oriented director so the Chivo hire always felt a bit strange to me and indeed there's nothing here that looks too different from the director's previous films. Yes, Lubezki has quite a particular way of shooting close-ups and of gliding his camera around the actors as if he were a serpent but DOR's reliance on the former doesn't give Chivo too many opportunities to actually utilize the latter which to me is the more interesting part of what he has to offer. The brown-grey palette does suggest that some thought was put into the overall visual design of the movie but to me its look is just not that beguiling or intriguing or even pleasant to absorb. I mean, it's fine but nothing more than that.
All in all I didn't hate the movie or anything. It just ended up being quite a bit more forgettable and flaccid than I expected. A project with this much prestige in front and behind the camera shouldn't really be this meh.
As one of the few (or maybe the only one?) resident fans of American Hustle I'm especially disappointed by this because Amsterdam seems like DOR's attempt to recapture that sprightly ensemble spirit after the one-heroine focus of Joy but unfortunately doesn't possess any of the energy, vivid characterization or fun of the 2013 film. The idea is sort of the same - a bunch of peculiar characters with a real-life event as the backdrop for their interactions. But the crucial difference is that the world of Amsterdam is filled with people who aren't really that interesting and whose relationships aren't really that engaging. There's not too much to these characters besides their quirks and you can only go so far on nothing else but that. There's an incredible amount of big famous actors in the piece and yet few of them actually pop off the screen. One thing I didn't expect the film to be is boring and yet that's exactly what I started feeling about halfway through it. There's a recurring motif of the main trio having their personal musical happy place which they call "nonsense song" and frankly I think those two words perfectly describe a lot of the dialogue we get to sit through. It was especially clear to me when our heroes met Rami Malek and sat down to have a chat with him - not only did the scene seem to go on for hours but it also felt like they were just babbling on about nothing with occasional bursts of plot-relevant stuff thrown in there to drive the movie forward. And there were quite a few scenes of that same nature. Unlike the films that DOR made in the 2010s, neither the characters of Amsterdam nor their conversations gave me much reason to be actively invested in the on-screen proceedings. It was all just a bit flat. Perhaps DOR shouldn't have taken this long of a break between movies. He seems to have forgotten how to write'em.
Not even the visuals do much to elevate the film despite DOR going so far as to end Emmanuel Lubezki's break and hire him as the cinematographer. Russell isn't an image-oriented director so the Chivo hire always felt a bit strange to me and indeed there's nothing here that looks too different from the director's previous films. Yes, Lubezki has quite a particular way of shooting close-ups and of gliding his camera around the actors as if he were a serpent but DOR's reliance on the former doesn't give Chivo too many opportunities to actually utilize the latter which to me is the more interesting part of what he has to offer. The brown-grey palette does suggest that some thought was put into the overall visual design of the movie but to me its look is just not that beguiling or intriguing or even pleasant to absorb. I mean, it's fine but nothing more than that.
All in all I didn't hate the movie or anything. It just ended up being quite a bit more forgettable and flaccid than I expected. A project with this much prestige in front and behind the camera shouldn't really be this meh.