Amsterdam review: Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington usher this restless drama that blissfully flies past a significant chapter of history for its own intricate aesthetic.
“A lot of this really happened,” reveals the opening card in David O Russell’s Amsterdam, which is based on a nation’s past that undoubtedly attempts to mirror remains in our present. A component of American history when fascists tried to destroy the government becomes a social satire with shattered people trying to decode an intrigue that should turn into an intelligent and entertaining drama given it is David O Russell who is at the helm of fortes. Or so you believe.
The director has made a career out of starry ensembles that if nothing else, carve out an extremely engaging narrative fueled by razor-sharp observances of human behavior. Amsterdam, in multiple ways, corresponds to the same mold with which the director made his American Hustle (2013), another irrepressible drama that centered around a distinguishing time in history, with the title card, “Some of this actually happened.” Yet, the writer-director stirs out a conspiracy so misplaced in its own precious mysticism that the 134 minutes feel blank, monotonous, and exhausting. Amsterdam casts so many famous people that it begins to harm the frenzied narrative and tills to constantly pause you out of the story.
The confusion does not conceive from the fact that Amsterdam negotiates primarily through a topsy-turvy chapter in the U.S. political history, but how the screenplay, co-written by Eric Singer cooks up a woke sense of cockiness through it all, bound to make its audience bent towards the personal reveals of its distinctive characters. The year is 1933 when we are first introduced to two old ex-veteran pals Burt Berensden (an out-of-breath Christian Bale) and Harold Woodsman (John David Washington, odd and overt) who glimpse the grisly murder of Elizabeth Meekins (Taylor Swift) and from thereafter, become involved in an enigma that jeopardizes to upend their lives.
Caught into this bizarreness is the artist Valerie (Margot Robbie, finely misused) who Burt and Harold saw in Amsterdam years ago- and which particular forms the overindulgent, extended flashback the film firmly tightens its steam from. Burt prefers to return to New York to be with his wife Vandenheuvel (Andrea Riseborough, the only performance that truly sparkles in its limited spotlight), and from there on, Amsterdam returns to an elaborately cluttered aesthetic to reimburse for the lack of sensation.
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Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy also star in climactic roles as the Voze couple, but their characters are so backed and empty that nothing of what they seem to conspire remotely arouses an interest. Even Robert de Niro as Gil Dillenbeck cannot counterbalance the inexplicable attempt to slide past the sign, and a considerable part of history to turn into an eccentric whodunit integrated with its own rich aesthetic of visual design. The cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and production design by Judy Becker are pretty but only lead to something of a longing for a lost portrayal trying to counterbalance its own mysticism.
Amsterdam is a bummer of epic proportions, one that yearns to make sense of the inescapable longing for a better life, the hallucinations of the past, and the devastation provoked by war. In the end, Russell only hands to glide over the explanation to arrive at a redemption of sorts- one that feels nauseatingly ridiculous. The past years of utopic adventures are lost, and so is the case of Amsterdam implying its longing.
