That Deceit of ‘American Hustle,’ the Negative Side of the US

Love and deceit. Friendship and deceit. Or perhaps just deceit. Like behind every turn in life — as in, every turn in an individual or collective daily existence. That light, oscillating boundary between the truth and what appears to be true, between spontaneity and artifice. That vacillating, ephemeral threshold that knows of fraud or illusion. And in the movies, both fraud and illusion have always played significant parts. For “American Hustle — Appearances Deceive” [this seems to be a title the author christens the original with] by David Owen Russell, the director who carried Jennifer Lawrence to an Oscar last year with The Positive Side [referring to “Silver Linings Playbook”; “Il Lato Positive” is the Italian title for the movie], there is what put ill at ease even “The Sting” by George Roy Hill, which in 1974 won as many as seven statuettes. In reality, the famous flick with Robert Redford and Paul Newman, the indisputable sex symbols of those years, has nothing to divvy up with Russell’s film.

“American Hustle” goes beyond fraud. Beyond deceit. And as a point of departure, it deals with a scandal that really happened in America between the late 1970s and early 1980s, which unmasked corruption in political life. In Russell’s usual vein, we then move on to a paraphrase about deceit in everyday life. The “Abscam case,” as it is called, was in fact an undercover FBI operation, in which two agents collaborated with the crook Melvin Weinberg, creating a phone company belonging to a fake Arab sheikh in order to offer bribes in exchange for political favors. This plot yields its fruits; six U.S. representatives and one senator fall into the trap, are tried and found guilty. The mayor of Camden, New Jersey is also mixed up with them.

In Russell’s version, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is a con artist who, in league with his partner and lover, Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), weaves all kinds of cons until he ends up being recruited by Detective Richie DelMasso (Bradley Cooper), from whom the two receive a certain impunity if they agree to help him corner Italian-American Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who is suspected of plotting with the boss of the organized underworld (Robert DeNiro). Breaking the bank will be Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence), Irving’s betrayed wife, who will face off with her rival, risking overturning the political plan because of her now frayed marital and romantic relations with her husband.

All in all, reducing “American Hustle” to a mystery, somewhere between the policesque and the political, would be wrongly dissecting a film that for not being an absolute masterpiece is certainly not dismissible despite its two hours and 15 minutes duration. The trap that the FBI sets for the representatives, senators and mayors in order to obtain proof of their guilt is nothing other than a line, perhaps even just a metaphor or an artifice, for lowering the dynamics of deceit and fraud all the way to the depths of the most common lives, so normal on the outside.

The achievements that Agent Bradley Cooper tends to attribute to himself are pure illusion and real lies. He regularly finds himself on the outside and almost the butt of the joke of the fraudulent couple, which is preparing a grand affair for uncovering the bribery of the political class. It is deception — matrimonial, this time — that the beautiful Rosalyn falls into while being neglected by Irving, who prefers the captivating Sydney but does not have the courage to face the situation. It is deception — sentimental all the way — that Richie Di Masso falls into while falling in love with Sydney, only to later discover that she is the con artist’s wife, his accomplice. It is deception, the friendship between Irving, who is ambiguous by trade, and Mayor Carmine Polito, who is discovered precisely thanks to the ploy plotted by that feigned friendship of feasts and joyrides. And it is deception that fuels even the marriage between Carmine and Dolly, who ignores the dubious affairs of a husband whom she believes to be an example of pure honesty. And it is deception that even the spectator himself falls into, who, beyond the fraudulent twist that supports the plot of the whole film, will find himself curious to find out if Irving’s bond with Sydney will survive the matrimonial crisis with Rosalyn — even if the politically correct will win out on this one in the puritanical United States.

Love is one of the motifs that carries the entirety of “American Hustle” and is probed in every way. “When you are in love, you know you are more than a simple sum of the individual parts. And something divine happens,” explains Russell himself, who goes beyond the idyllic and seeks to tell what happens to a couple when it bumps into the concrete problems in life. When being special to one another allows for overcoming hurdles that appear insurmountable, or drown you. And the spectator ends up falling in love with their love and their passion, to a point that he asks himself without pause if in that crossover between two illegalities, they will be able to save themselves too.

The film, which has already gained multiple nominations — last year, “Silver Lining Playbook,” also by Russell, totaled eight nominations but won only one Oscar — has an extraordinary musical score, which ranges from “Jeep’s Blues” by Duke Ellington to “Dirty Work” by Steely Dan, from “Delilah” by Tom Jones all the way to the Electric Light Orchestra, to an unforgettable version of “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney, with the decisive but sensual movements of Jennifer Lawrence, to whom the makeup artists have added a bunch of decades to the official records on the actress born in Louisville, in August 1990. The music, typical revival of the 1970s, with the reinterpretation of segments and musicians often not very well known, creates a contrasting motif to the accompanying actions — as often happens with Russell, who is meticulous and careful in choosing segments.

Costumes and hairdos, studied in detail, contribute to recreating the atmosphere of the times. Russell did not limit himself to a careful examination of outfits but also expected that the actors would adapt physically to the roles they were playing. So, Jennifer Lawrence was made to look older; Christian Bale was forced to gain 20 kilograms and present himself on the big screen soft and vulnerable, with an unbearable combover and spectacles that would be simply unacceptable today. Bradley Cooper underwent a perm that curled his hair, transforming its physiognomy; Amy Adams completely ignores the existence and use of a bra during the entire film, embodying a femme fatale role which the American actress, born in Vicenza, where her father was posted as a NATO official, could certainly permit herself. Today, Amy Adams’ mother paid tribute to these Italian origins — that the actress has remained attached to — in an American way, by inflicting on her daughter the name Aviana. Indeed, the [name of the] NATO base where the family lived when Amy was conceived. But this is another film ….