People need to calm down about Hustlers. It's
been a roller coaster tracking this movie the past few months. Initially, all I
knew was that it was a stripper movie with Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez from
STX Entertainment: a studio that has pushed very hard to make some noise in the
box office the last few years and has mostly been met with failure. This is the
studio that released the incurably overpriced Valerian and the City of a
Thousand Planets. It raced out a sequel to its one unqualified hit, Bad
Moms, with Electric Boogaloo-like speed. Their attempts at prestige
pictures (Molly's Game, The Secret in Their Eyes, The Best of
Enemies) have been failures. Frankly, when I first heard about Hustlers,
it sounded like a less-notable The Kitchen. Then Hustlers
premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and got rave reviews. The
Jennifer Lopez Oscar campaign is a thing with real momentum. It became that
movie that people who weren't aware of the reviews all told me "I know it
looks bad, but I really want to see Hustlers". It finally premiered
this weekend and is an unqualified hit, prompting countless think pieces about
everything from the importance of female-led hits to disenfranchisement during
the Great Recession.
Before I get into talking about this movie, I just
need everyone to take a beat, take a deep breathe, and settle down.
Hustlers is
good. I happy that it's good. I'm not sure that I see why it was the buzzy
movie coming out of Toronto. I'm not convinced that the J-Lo Oscar talk is
going to last (It sure sounds a lot like the Matthew McConaughey when Magic
Mike came out). This is a good movie, and that's enough.
At its heart, Hustlers is a pretty
traditional crime drama in the Goodfellas mold, following the rise and
fall structure faithfully. It begins with Destiny (Constance Wu) struggling to
make ends meet as a stripper at a new club until the much more successful Romano
(Jennifer Lopez) takes her under her wing. Things are going great until the
2008 market crash happens and no one has money to throw away at a strip club.
That's when they and a couple other now former strippers hatch a new plan.
Essentially, they target rich Wall Street types, drug them, then run up charges
on their credit cards at a club where the women have arranged for a cut of the
profits.They realize that the police aren't going to investigate a guy claiming
that he got drunk, he went to a strip club, and they stole his money. The women
reason that, since these guys are the ones who caused the market crash, it
isn't that immoral to steal from them. Eventually, the success leads to
their downfall in all the predictable ways. The story is framed as an interview
for a newspaper article* which allows for time jumps and story breaks
throughout.
*The movie is based on a magazine article, and the
writer of the article, Jessica Pressler, has been very successful at getting
her name front and center in the advertising. Her agent deserves a raise.
While the structure is familiar, it's still a lot of
fun to watch. The movie employs a deep bench of actresses as the strippers,
including the suddenly ubiquitous Lizzo and Cardi B. Keke Palmer is my pick
for stealth MVP. She's in a lot of the movie and manages to be quite funny
without stealing attention away from anyone else. The central performances, of
course, are Constance Wu and Jennifer Lopez. Wu is the lead. I love Wu. She's
been great for years on Fresh Off the Boat. She finally got people's
attention with Crazy Rich Asians last year. This is a new side of her.
It's a mostly serious role that occasionally lets her flex her comedy muscles.
She's the sympathetic center of the movie. The movie doesn't work if you don't
like her, so she's a success in the role. Jennifer Lopez is the star of the
movie. It's technically a supporting role, but she's the driving force of the
movie. She's excellent. It's been years since she's had a role this good. The
fact that it seems physically impossible for her to look this good at 50 is
almost beside the point. If it turns out that she can ride this to an Oscar
nomination, I would be thrilled. I love seeing non-traditional Oscar
nominations. I'm just not convinced that it will happen.
I like that this tells the story of the Great
Recession from a different perspective. The characters aren't entirely
sympathetic. The movie doesn't over-vilify the men they take advantage of. It
shows a few being vile, but most of them are blank slates; objects to be
exploited. This makes it easier to root for Wu and Lopez without ever condoning
what they are doing. They rationalize what they do, but the characters are
always aware that it's a rationalization. I appreciated the restraint of the movie.
It gets in a few good lines about the broken system and "eat the
rich", but it mostly keeps the focus on the main characters.
I'm a little disappointed that I didn't come out of
the movie more enthusiastic. I'd like to be in the group of people loudly
banging the drum for the movie. That looks a lot more fun. Instead, I can san
that it's pretty good, with strong performances all-around and a script that
doesn't sag anywhere. I think it's great that a female-led movie with a female
writer-director is finding so much success. It's nice to find a movie this fun
in what's usually a pretty dire part of the release calendar. Familiar and good
will have to be enough for me.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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