REVIEW: Amsterdam

Coming up on ten years since David O. Russell's masterwork, Silver Linings Playbook, the film world is still waiting for Russell to unveil his next great offering. Given the seven years' build-up since his last attempt, there was some hope that perhaps Amsterdam would ratify his place in the conversation.

The film follows three comrades--Burt (Christian Bale), Harold (John David Washington), and Valerie (Margot Robbie)--whose friendship was formed in the heat of the first world war. Time and life eventually drag them apart, and "the pact" dissolves. Years later, Burt and Harold circle a conspiracy that also sees them framed for murder. Fate intervenes, and these two find themselves back in the company of Valerie, and together these three unravel a trail of corruption to clear their names and prevent the country from sliding into fascism.

Amsterdam is not bereft of skill or insight, but the film's many merits are buried in a story that is boringly dry at some times, and awkwardly cluttered at others. It appears we will have to wait a little while longer still for Russell to premiere his next great work.

Russell has a lot he's hoping the audience will unpack. The choice to tell a story between two world wars, a time when the world allowed itself to think that the bad times were behind us for good and we can finally let our guard down--feels very deliberate. There's a consistent thread of characters chasing a sanctuary and paradise that feels like it's been lost or else on the verge of being taken at any moment. There's also Valerie's eccentric hobby of warping the shrapnel she pulls from injured soldiers to make art as an extension of her trying to turn something violent into something beautiful. You can feel the charge of metaphor in a lot of places, even if you don't have time to fully wrap your fingers around it before the film dumps its next puzzle on you. It's the kind of experience that might read as enlightening, even revelatory, after a couple of dives. But it needs be said the first run through is something of a calisthenics exercise.

Viewers will likely appreciate the attention afforded to the loving camaraderie between Bale, Robbie, and Washington, so much so that they might even be willing to overlook how little this friendship actually factors into the plot. One member of the triumvirate is not introduced, or even mentioned, until the film has already trod through quite a bit of narrative. Throughout the course of the film itself, "the pact" is barely tested or prodded, neither is it a key player in the film's resolution. This is but one example of the film collecting interesting ideas along the way without bothering to truly make room for them.

We are told that Harold and Burt being implicated in the murder of Taylor Swift is a dire circumstance--the police show up to Burt's house and give them frowny-faces and everything!--but they don't exactly behave like fugitives after the fact. Burt's fine to go to his place of work the next day, and this plotpoint is never more than a minor inconvenience. The dissonance here undermines what should have been a natural source of tension. What would North by Northwest be if Thornhill felt safe going to the bank without so much as a pair of sunglasses?

Ill-thought story choices like this obscure the film's many victories. Points to this film for daring to buck the standard "disabled villain" trope by making its protagonist a scarred war veteran who himself makes a living helping the deformed and disfigured.

Amsterdam lands in a place of sincerity, approaching profundity. In that spirit, I'll conclude my review by acknowledging that, even through its shortcomings, Amsterdam reveals something familiar about the human need for company that is evergreen amidst a world that itself may always be changing, always on the brink of unraveling. For that, I can't be anything less than grateful that Russell and his team took the time to tell this story.

--The Professor

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