David O Russell is a director who certainly has had an interesting career. Although his early films met with critical approval they never really bothered the Box Office or the Oscars. That all changed in 2010 when he started to be a big feature of the Oscar calendar, earning three Best Director nominations over four years. The films themselves all had different subject matter but were tied together by a number of fine performances from a set of actors that Russell was seemingly able to get the best from.
One actor who I feel Russell nurtured to an extent was Mark Wahlberg who appeared in his 1999 film Three Kings and later in the bizarre I Heart Huckabees. Russell and Wahlberg's third collaboration saw the director's first success at The Oscars with Wahlberg giving a tremendous performance as Micky Ward in The Fighter. Following in the footsteps of Raging Bull, The Fighter is a film about a boxer with a troubled family life. But unlike other films it's not the boxer himself whose troubled but rather his brother in this case drug addicted former star Dicky Ecklund. Alongside his mother Alice, Dicky feels he knows what's best for Micky however his trust in his family looks to be his downfall. Micky is to extent saved by his new love Charlene who helps him to believe in himself and helps him assemble a new management team. I personally liked this take on the sports movie where in the boxer himself lacks confidence partly due to it being emotionally knocked out of him by certain family members. As the film progresses, The Fighter does lapse into familiar territory as we are treated to a montage of Micky's various winning fights. The film also ends rather predictably with Micky competing in a championship match with all of his family members by his side. However I don't think The Fighter ever slips into Rocky territory with Russell maintaining a sense of realism due to the participation of several real life characters playing themselves in the film. I personally liked the final credits sequence in which the real Micky and Dicky voiced their pleasure about seeing their life story captured on film but were seemingly glad the experience was over.
In my opinion, Wahlberg was the star here as he gave a measured performance as the fighter who wanted a quiet life. Whilst everybody else was shouting around him, Wahlberg kept his cool and perfectly portrayed Micky's gentle nature. The fact that Wahlberg wasn't even nominated for a Best Actor award is a travesty in my eyes especially as he was the only member of the central cast not to feature among that year's nominees. Christian Bale's portrayal of Dicky won him the Best Supporting Actor award and in my eyes this was more than deserved. Bale's manic energy gave the audience the impression of a once successful man who's life had been ruined by drugs. Bale was similarly great at portraying Dicky's rehabilitation and his final realisation that his brother needed everybody by his side. For her performance as matriarchal Alice, Melissa Leo also won an Oscar although I'm not quite sure that her win was as deserved as Bale's. Leo really didn't show me much during the course of the film and I found her to be a little annoying at points. In fact if there was to be a Supporting Actress winner from The Fighter I feel it should have been Amy Adams, who cast off her good girl image to portray the feisty Charlene. Although I'm a sucker for a feel-good sports film, I think The Fighter was a step above the average boxing movie. That's because it contained real emotion thanks to the relationship between Micky and his family. Whilst I don't think The Fighter could ever have won the Best Picture prize, I believe it definitely deserved its place as one of that year's ten nominees.
After directing a sports movie, Russell's next project was thematically different from The Fighter although it did share his previous film's themes of triumphing against adversity. Russel both directed and adapted Silver Linings Playbook which began life as a novel by Matthew Quick. When I first watched Silver Linings Playbook I was quite dismissive of it, primarily as I'd felt it had lost a lot of the subtlety of Quick's novel. However, watching it the second time around I believe I enjoyed it a lot more and found it to be a quirky and charming romantic comedy. I can also appreciate how hard a story it is to adapt seeing as its lead character, bipolar former teacher Pat, isn't particularly likeable. I thought that Russell did well to turn Pat into a sympathetic character albeit one who is prone to random outbursts and has tendency to talk over other people. It's clear though that the character Russell cares most about is Tiffany, the young wife of a late police officer who Pat knows through mutual friends. Tiffany convinces Pat to be her dance partner at an upcoming competition in return for getting a letter to his estranged wife who currently has a restraining order out against him. As soon as Pat and Tiffany start dancing together you know exactly what the end result will be but I think the Russell paces out the film well enough that getting there is a fun ride. Although I don't think Russell perfectly captures the essence of Pat in this screen version I still think he did an admirable job. To that end I do believe that if I hadn't have read Quick's book then I think I would've enjoyed Russell's film a lot more.
As I previously noted, Russell is somebody who is able to get the best performances out of his actors and Silver Linings Playbook was no exception. In fact the film became the first to be nominated in all four acting categories since Warren Beatty's Reds in the early 1980s. Of these nominees only Jennifer Lawrence, who played Tiffany, ultimately triumphed becoming one of the youngest Best Actress winners in the process. When she was first cast, Russell believed that Lawrence was too young for the role of the widowed Tiffany and I'd be inclined to agree. Although she portrays her character's experiences well, I didn't ever fully by into Lawerence as Tiffany. Part of the problem is the seventeen year age gap between Lawrence and co-star Bradley Cooper as they just look odd when they're on screen together. Additionally I think that Lawrence should have scooped the Oscar the year before for a more measured turn than the one she gave in Silver Linings Playbook. I think Lawrence has been better elsewhere but I can see why the Academy honoured in the year she played somebody with mental health problems. Cooper himself anchored his manic energy well and by the end of the film made me actually care about Pat. Silver Linings Playbook also revived Robert DeNiro's career as he received a Supporting Actor nomination for playing Pat Sr., his first nod since the 1992 ceremony. De Niro toned down his normal screen persona to play a father who found it hard to get emotional with his troubled son. I'm not quite sure why Jacki Weaver was nominated for her role as Pat's mum as, while she was good, there was nothing about her performance that screamed Oscar nomination. It's fair to say that I definitely enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook a lot more the second time around and found it to be a charming and well-paced romantic comedy. At the same time Silver Linings Playbook never really feels like an Oscar film and I still contend that Lawrence has been a lot better than she was in the film that ultimately won her her Oscar.
One year on Russell gathered stars from his two most recent films for the movie which would garner a massive ten Oscar nominations including four acting nods. The film in question was American Hustle which saw Christian Bale and Amy Adams from The Fighter return to play con-artist duo Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser. Married conman and dry-cleaner Irving had been using Sydney to dupe people by getting his marks to believe she was an English aristocrat named Lady Edith. Irving had also fallen in love with Sydney but he fears that if he leaves his unstable wife then she'll shop him into the cops. His wife Rosalyn is played by Jennifer Lawrence who is briefly reunited with her Silver Linings Playbook co-star Bradley Cooper who stars here as FBI Agent Richie DiMaso. DiMaso cottons on to Irving and Sydney's scams and threatens to arrest her unless the pair play along with his plans. What follows is a fictionalised version of the FBI ABSCAM operation as the trio get a fellow agent to play a sheik in order to con a number of politicians and mobsters. One politician they particularly focus their attention on is Carmine Polito, the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey. Like any good caper film the plan soon becomes complicated when feelings begin to get in the way of the scheme. Firstly Richie falls for Sydney, who he only knows as Edith, and this in turn creates a power struggle between the FBI Agent and experienced con man Irving. Secondly Irving and Carmine develop a friendship based on their working class backgrounds and so the former finds it hard to dupe the latter. The unstable Rosalyn then gets herself involved in the plot when Carmine's wife takes a shine to her and she has to attend an important function. Ultimately it's revealed that one side has been playing the other all along and I have to say I didn't see the twist coming at all.
I'd heard several negative things about American Hustle before I watched it and to be fair it took me a while to get into it. But once I'd become accustomed to the tone and rhythm of the dialogue I was swept away by the film's entertaining narrative. Eric Warren Singer and Russell's script is well-paced and introduces all the primary players in a way that you understand all of their motivations. However, one of my problems with the film was that it contained my pet peeve; the multiple expositional voiceover which in this case is delivered by Irving, Sydney and Richie. American Hustle certainly looks the part and has been particularly singled out for its characters' hairstyles. Each of the five central characters has an incredibly noticeable hairpiece which matches their personality perfectly and so its odd that the film didn't get a nomination in the Best Hair and Make-Up category. Once again all of Russell's key players were nominated for acting Oscars meaning that, for the second time in a row, one of his films had a nomination in each acting category. Bradley Cooper once again combined his manic energy with a more sensitive side to play Richie, a man who'd been overlooked for so long and was now coming into his own. Christian Bale piled on the pounds and donned a combover to play the mild-mannered yet devious Irving and he looks to be having a great time doing it. Meanwhile Amy Adams is perfectly cast as the adorable yet scheming Sydney even if she does let Edith's English accent slip from time to time. In supporting roles, Jeremy Renner shone as Carmine as he gave an enigmatic turn as the Mayor of a city that everybody loved whilst both Louis CK and Robert De Niro also put in memorable performances. But once again it was Jennifer Lawrence who stole the show playing the unpredictable Rosalyn so well that you miss her every time she's not on screen. Lawrence missed out on an Oscar this time round but I feel that her performance is as good as it was in Silver Linings Playbook.
American Hustle is definitely a film that is stylised to within an inch of its life but there's no denying that it looks good. Every song choice makes sense and I will never be able to hear 'Live and Let Die' again without thinking of Jennifer Lawrence manically cleaning and wearing marigolds. There's no denying that American Hustle is an entertaining piece of film-making but at the same time I feel that, of the three of Russell's nominated films, its the least spectacular. In fact I don't think it would stand-up to repeat viewings in the same way as The Fighter would and therefore I'm struggling to understand why its been as well-received as it has. Although I was entertained by it, its not a particularly remarkable piece of work but by now it seems that anything that Russell directs will instantly be an Oscar favourite come awards season.
Next time we catch up with a director who hasn't featured on the blog since the 1980s.
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