The eyes have it.
David O. Russell’s latest eloquent epic, AMSTERDAM, is an optical allusion, where characters’ eyes loom large to capture our gaze.
Eyeballs feature prominently in the narrative as one of the lead characters, Burt Berendsen, sports a false eye, legacy of a wound during World War I. It was during that conflict he befriended fellow soldier, Harold Woodman and nurse, Valerie. The two men’s convalescence under the invigorating Valerie leads to a life long pact that prevails over a couple of decades and plunges them into a political plot that’s as hot a potato as the recent woes in Washington.
AMSTERDAM s a caper movie but it’s not frivolous. It actually has something to say about veterans affairs, the democratic process, war, seeking beauty out of ugliness, and the importance of love and the difference between choice and need.
What a cast! Christian Bale as Burt, John David Washington as Harold, and the luminescent Margot Robbie as Valerie. There’s your price of admission right there. But further to this threesome is a sublime supporting cast.
Robert De Niro as a decorated General and Beth Grant as his protective spouse, Mike Myers and Michael Shannon as a couple of spooks, Anya Taylor-Joy and Rami Malek as a high society couple, Matthias Schoenaerts and Alessandro Nivola as a couple of homicide detectives, Andrea Riseborough as Burt’s ball busting wife and Zoe Saldana who may be his true soul mate.
Being a conspiracy caper movie, Russell’s screenplay rightly canters into the what will happen next straight, but it also adroitly focuses our wonder onto what happened then and what is happening now, reinforced by a mastery of atmosphere, detail and comic conversation, showing a miraculous ear for eloquent eccentricity.
As eyes are a kind of leitmotif, the look of the film has to be a vision splendid, and it is. Special mention must go to the production designer, Judy Becker and her superlative work, and costume designer Albert Wolsky, the nonagenarian two time Oscar winner, not to mention three time Oscar recipient cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki. The work of all three is sublime and sumptuous.
AMSTERDAM is a film of its time for our time.