American Hustle (2014, David O. Russell)

With an ensemble of performers that will be a hard push to beat throughout the new year, David O. Russell crafts an entertaining and tightly conceived caper out of the real events of the ABSCAM scandal of the 1970s. Surprisingly touching and featuring (unsurprisingly) an array of oddball characters, American Hustle sacrifices its historical background to tell a resonant story of regained love and second chances to great effect.

The film drops us into the middle of the story as a group of as yet unidentified misfits attempt to pull off a job amid a backdrop of hidden cameras and microphones. We know the stakes are high but to what end and for why? We're not yet indulged. The audaciously hilarious opening images of an overweight balding Christian Bale gluing his hair into place is sidesplitting in its silence; it's tough to imagine a more effortlessly shocking opening image coming along in cinema this year.

As Irving Rosenfeld's (Bale) voice-over takes us through his origin as a conman and his meeting with equally cunning true love, Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams),  and their successes and eventual downfall through FBI agent Richie DiMasso (Bradley Cooper), it's clear form the offset that we're in safe hands as the film lulls you into its cool pacing and confident direction.

The cinematic chameleon of Amy Adams is smartly cast as Rosenfeld's right hand woman and lover; in a film featuring characters who deal in deception for a living, as the FBI's grip tightens on the couple and their secret counter attack is left ambiguous at best, Prosser's intentions are never to be trusted as Adams retains a strong level of danger from a character who could be a best friend or worst enemy at the drop of a hat. This of course works as the film's dramatic arc due to it being on a kilter with Bale's endearingly frumpy turn; as the couple are forced to give the FBI 'crooked' politicians through financial dealings while juggling their own lives - mostly the firecracker that is Rosenfeld's wife played memorably by Jennifer Lawrence - its impossible to not want this man, played so gently by Bale to succeed.

American Hustle is entertainment through and through, with evenly paced and wisely placed humour throughout. It's hard to remember a film that gets more mileage out of its humour in hair, make-up, and costume changes alone. The drama naturally flattens as the plot strands and motives take over in the final stages, this is due to Russell being more interested in the characters and their predicaments rather than the historical context and to an extent this pays off as it avoids the history with a capital H look at the story. Though a standout scene involving a welcomingly intimidating supporting turn from Robert DeNiro certainly cranks up the heat as lives begin to hang in the balance. 

Everyone is clearly having fun here and thanks to the human emotive elements being brought out so well it really pays off as intelligent popcorn fare of the highest order. Bringing the key actors in from his last two films (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook), Russell tells (albeit entirely on different ground) another story of reinvention and second chances - a universally powerful theme if there ever was one. Like his performers, the director is also having a back as he makes his throwback to 1970s American cinema. In one scene Richie DiMasso listens to Rosenfeld speak at a gallery of how the forger of art can be argued as being just as talented as the artist themselves. There's some mirroring here as Russell shoots and edits with the energy and passion of 70s greats Scorsese and Lumet to name but a couple, respectfully forging his own film successfully out of the mould left by these acknowledged masters.

The Place Beyond The Pines (2013, Derek Cianfrance)

Derek Cianfrance's second feature film is so far reaching, so widely scoped, and bogged down by its own ambitious weight it feels as if it's been adapted from a famously difficult text. A text that's always on the brink of becoming disastrous as it makes the transition to the screen.

This is not the case, however, as Cianfrance and his co-writers have sculpted an 'original' drama despite feeling novelistic in its dense and sprawling nature. As the narrative begins to restart itself, so to speak, several times after a defining cataclysmic action early on, we're guided through several setups that feel knowingly cliched. Never, though, are we quite sure where the film is taking us and in exploring these hackneyed tropes one feels the film is exploring (among other concerns) the idea of cliches head on; of self fulfilling prophecies,  of predetermination,  and a truth that cliches exist because they're a fact of the cyclical nature of life. 

We respond to cliches in cinema because they're familiar and represent a truth no matter how vague or obscured, we often become cliches ourselves due to these rooted truths, and we often turn into cliches blindly or even by actively renouncing them. In the case of the characters present in The Place Beyond The Pines, their fulfilment (or lack thereof) comes blindly as if events are out of their control. They're part of a cosmic fatality unable to look from the outside in, as we do.

Ryan Gosling is introduced in a stunning (yet unashamedly scruffy) tracking shot as he goes to work; he is a traveling stunt motorcyclist named Luke who in this opening shot rides circles around two other moving bikers in a modestly sized spherical steel cage. The imagery and atmosphere does more than enough to race your heart. Upon discovering that a previous fling (Eva Mendes) has resulted in a son, Luke deserts his rootless lifestyle in a bid to raise the baby and support them both, a pressure that mounts until he resorts to a life of crime in order to provide, a path that ultimately leads him to a confrontation with an idealistic cop played by Bradley Cooper on top form. This fateful showdown provides a jumping off point for the film, as an act of violence changes both men's lives which in turn causes a rippling effect throughout their family's future generations, a curse-like bind that seems intent on echoing for eternity.

Questions of masculinity sit at the heart of the film; questions of what it is to be a man, to be a father. Others include how much of our lives are preordained and how little power we have over who we are and will become. Like his previous film, Blue Valentine, Cianfrance creates an overwhelming sense of loss and melancholy, creating a genuine feeling of time passing. Here, the years rest very heavily on the picture just as they should while purveying multiple lives ruined by a single event. Unlike Blue Valentine which clung to a central couple and followed them throughout, Pines leapfrogs several times to focus on different characters and must therefore reboot its narrative drive accordingly, a move that highlights its ambition while stifling it. 

During the film I was reminded of the cinema of Cassavetes, of Coppola, and even Kazan at times, perhaps due to the novelistic sweep of a film combined with an unfazed, gritty worldview full of Catholic representation and a littering of father figures. Despite tinkering in the bleak there is a poetry present that tinges it with a welcome warmth at times. Cianfrance's camera isn't merely interested in Gosling as it is utterly enamoured by him as he delivers another fine performance, a turn that isn't offset by his director's knowing iconography. There is a forced feeling at times, though it's never less than joyous, that Cianfrance is looking for classic status in the imagery of his leading actor; like Brando in The Wild One or Mickey Rourke in Rumble Fish. But in reassessing the film's relationship with myth-making and its hankering for the past, this approach is certainly fitting or forgivable at least.

The seams may show in The Place Beyond The Pines, a film that's fit to burst with a rich array of existential concerns. But I can't see how a film with such an appetite deserves an ounce of condemnation. It's rare to see a film take risks that others would deem narrative suicide, to be completely entrusted with itself from beginning to end without losing sight while it morphs and adjusts to encompass what it desires to accomplish.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012, David O. Russell)

Beginning with a training montage that wouldn't seem out of place in his previous film The Fighter, David O. Russell's latest sees a shift from a physical rejuvenation to a mental one. As we're introduced to Pat (Bradley Cooper) preparing to enter the outside world after a stint in a psychiatric hospital, his sights are set on an unrealistic mission to mend his broken marriage after a past trauma which led to his admittance. As Pat continues to battle himself with a comfortable reintegration into society looking far from likely, it takes a new acquaintance more damaged than himself to help him see past his own problems and to except what life has dealt him.

David O. Russell's films typically harbour characters always on the brink of exploding; highly strung neurotic individuals who blur the line of where sanity ends and aberration begins. It's therefore fitting that such a filmmaker would tackle the issue of mental health, placing it amongst the backdrop of a damaged suburban America where 'normal' behaviour is like gold dust or simply impossible. As Pat moves back into his family home he is supported and loved by his parents (played by a wonderful Jackie Weaver and Robert DeNiro) but the signs of compulsive or aggressive behaviour can be seen in his gambling father, a close friend's marriage, and in a young grieving woman named Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who's erratic actions dwarf Pat's and could hold the key to his recovery. 

Bradley Cooper does a remarkable turn as Pat, a character who could easily have been an exasperating or perhaps unsympathetic character if done wrong. For the most part his actions are based around the frustratingly hopeless plight to win back his unfaithful wife, the woman responsible for his violent episode that changed his life. We know little about the Pat before incarceration, being left to engage with a blinkered man who cannot see what's good for him. Cooper triumphantly makes for an endearing screen presence throughout and one who instantly has you on his side. Russell also does a wonderful job in representing Pat as a tragically triggered bomb, showing others around him just as fragile as they journey through life's struggle still yet to be triggered as Pat was.

The real revelation here is Jennifer Lawrence, though, whose young grief stricken Tiffany is pure electric throughout. Another testament to the 22 year old actress's commanding talent as she convinces of a broken woman with enough experience to last her a life time. Her performance is note perfect, both wildly funny and raw. Robert DeNiro is also a pleasure to behold; after many rehashed or uninspired roles in recent years his take on Pat's severely OCD suffering father is a delightful one, again marking his adeptness for humour.

As the film reaches towards an end it may be little suprise as to where the story will end up but when it's handles as well as this you'd be pushed hard to complain. With its blossoming romance and dance set piece it'd be easy to say you've seen it before, whether you've seen it done this well is something else entirely. What marks Silver Linings Playbook out is the tenderness it holds for its characters; it neither exploits its central couple's instability thus creating a farce or bogs itself down with shallow sentimentality. Chaplin stated that the best comedy comes with a dose of melancholy, "to truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it", he said. There are great moments of humour here, humour which grows out of the characters rather honestly and without great contrivance. There is joy and pain in this picture, a rare 'comedy' with grit and compelling characters at its heart.