Hustlers – Review

Hustlers

Directed by: Lorene Scafaria

Runtime: 110 minutes

Peppered throughout the local chain cinemas across my home city, there are advertisements for ‘ladies night’ movies. Here, the rom-com or girly film of the month (usually some film with bright pink lettering or pastel colours on the poster) is given a special preview screening, usually at a higher price, where cocktails are served and sequins encouraged. Hustlers has been marketed as one of those films, and many people have said it does not deserve to be there. To some reviewers, Hustlers surprised them—it was more than a hollow ‘girl power’ movie, and better than the average feminine flick. To me, the film shines through its unabashed femineity, providing some beautiful commentary on female friendship, sexual ownership and empowerment.

Stripper Destiny (Constance Wu) finds success in the stripping profession, due in part to the mentoring of high-profile siren Ramona (Jennifer Lopez). However, after the 2008 financial crisis hits Wall Street, the girls’ industry suffers, forcing them to become more creative with their business model. The plot follows the standard tropes of any ‘underdog’/crime story—we have the manipulative mentor, the fresh-faced newbie, the soaring heights of success and the inevitable lows of greed. What elevates Hustlers beyond the ‘just plain average’ is the relationships within it; both the relationship between its characters and in their relationship with the world around them.

With Destiny and Ramona, we see a mentor/mentee relationship evolve into something a lot more interesting as the film progresses. Lopez puts in a fantastic performance as the powerful Ramona, able to balance an ice-cold powerful stare alongside a warmth of expression that provides some interesting character work. Throughout the film, I found myself wishing she would wrap one of her fur coats around me, sure she would make me feel as if everything in the world was okay. Wu, on the other hand, is not as starry-eyed as she may seem; she spends less time looking up to Ramona than she does standing alongside her, making her seem a lot less passive to the main plot.

When it comes to the direction, Scafaria matches stunning visuals with a stylistic flair that makes the piece feel incredibly sophisticated, without ever feeling too over-the-top. Interestingly, there were some inventive choices in the film’s audio; certain scenes used a variety of techniques to highlight emotion or the tension within a scenario, utilising sound in a unique manner. It is very rare to see audio used in such a rich way throughout a Hollywood feature film, and it elevated what could have been a generic feature to something a lot more memorable.

I really enjoyed this film. I didn’t enjoy it because it reminded me of Goodfellas, or because it was a surprise alongside other ‘girly’ flicks (in fact, femininity is not a metric of quality by any means). Instead, I enjoyed it because it had technical prowess, some stellar performances, and characters that I cared about. What could have been a film weighed down by its own agenda presented its main characters as living, breathing, complex individuals—shying away from the empty ‘girl power’ rhetoric that a lot of Hollywood features try to feed the masses as feminism. Furthermore, it was entertaining and a pleasure to watch and, in the end, sometimes that is all you need.