New Year’s Eve, the one night a year the whole world paints the town red, where family and friends come together to celebrate the passing of another year, and to welcome in a new dawn. A clean slate, a fresh start, a blank canvas to sketch a blueprint of self-reinvention. Fireworks decorate the night sky as clocks hit midnight, and everyone collectively screams “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” Yet, despite the seismic build-up, why is it that every 365 days we set ourselves up to fail? For it’s an improbability, in fact, it’s an impossibility that New Year’s Eve celebrations will ever fulfill expectations. It’s an evening that promises so much, yet delivers so little. It crumbles under the immense pressure of sheer anticipation, and inevitability leaves you with a hangover, come down, or an overdose of self-loathing and regret, despite all those resolutions.
Amsterdam is New Year’s Eve. The host? Filmmaker David O. Russell, who knows how to throw a party and has a history of entertaining at the most elaborately opulent soirée. The guest list of this supposedly celebratory film includes the likes of Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor Joy, Rami Malek, Taylor Swift, Michael Shannon, Chris Rock, and Zoe Saldaña, who all star in Russell’s massive movie.
As the drinks flow, the dawning realization quickly registers that this party is neither enjoyable nor worth the grossly overhyped expectation. The morning after the night before, the party critics are out in full force, brandishing it as “trash,” “exhaustingly wacky,” and “a potential work of art that ends in disappointment.” Was Amsterdam really as bad as the critics say? Did the unbearable weight of massive expectation cave in on its head?
Amsterdam is a Meandering Mystery
20th Century Studios
Set against the backdrop of 1930s New York and 1920s Amsterdam, the comedy-drama very loosely documents the true story of a fascist military coup gone wrong. Through the lives of three friends, Burt Berendsen (Bale), Harold Woodsman (Washington), and Valerie Voze (Robbie), who, having met during WWI, inadvertently become embroiled in a double homicide, and are subsequently implicated. Only to again, unintentionally, land themselves in one of the biggest conspiracies of 20th-century American politics.
Russell’s movie is a meandering, often confusing convolution that jumps back and forward in time, losing both its potency as a credible picture, and the unrefined jagged-ness of the true story it’s trying to tell in the process. We, the audience, are in an almost continuous battle to stay afloat, with some just about managing to keep their heads above the currents of the choppy narrative structure, while others can’t help but drown in the unnecessarily complex waters of the screenplay. The way Amsterdam is both written and acted, it would be a fun watch, if the way it was structured wasn’t such a tedium-inducing drag.
Amsterdam’s Cast are the Great Redeemers
For all its shortfalls, there are several redeeming features of David O. Russell’s movie, from the authenticity of both the stage-show-like set design, to the art-deco costume, and a color scheme that has this real, cold mistiness to it. Yet, the mise-en-scene aside, it’s the acting nous of esteemed pros such as Bale, Robbie, and Washington that help to resuscitate this lifeless snooze-fest. Their eccentricity relights the movie’s fire and recaptures our frequently wandering minds.
Christian Bale’s performance is as exuberant and life-giving as his performance as Irving Rosenfeld in 2013’s American Hustle, with his glass eye, disfigured skin, and partiality to some tickling humor. Washington is the most straight-laced out of the three, and certainly brings with him this degree of assurance and likability that makes his display the best among his colleagues. Robbie transforms into a brunette nurse, and like Bale, gives the role of the whimsical Valerie her best shot.
The Reviews Are Right
There is an embarrassment of riches in Amsterdam, with names vacuum-packed in, from great actors to amazing costume and set designers The fact that this is a film studded with stars, you are regularly left scratching your head with frustration at the level of talent left in the wings, that their appearances seem to be reduced to mere cameos in a film which doesn’t deserve its great visual aesthetic. It feels like a monumental waste, especially with the likes of Michael Shannon, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor Joy, and Rami Malek who have so much to offer a movie lacking in narrative star quality.
Overall, Amsterdam has an overinflated view of self. While the movie brings the fascinating story of the Business Plot of 1933 to the silver screen, it tangles itself up in knots and then trips over its own laces, failing to even tell the story truthfully. It possesses this swagger, and self-indulgence, that the screenplay simply doesn’t warrant. The film is proof that even the most dexterous of acting talents are unable to turn the tide of a relentless stream that rather than cascade beautifully, meanders dully. Sometimes, the reviews are right.
