By Sandra Hall
Amsterdam ★★★★½
(MA) 134 minutes
I hesitate to describe the humour in David O. Russell’s Amsterdam as black because it’s illuminated by irrepressible optimism.
There’s plenty of tragedy here – along with ignorance, racism and murderous malice – but the glue that binds the narrative together and makes it work is Russell’s sense of fun.
John David Washington, Christian Bale and Margot Robbie star in the seductive Amsterdam.Credit: Merie Weismiller Wallace/20th Century Studios
He’s performed this kind of alchemy before – most notably in American Hustle and Silver Linings Playbook. He doesn’t shy away from the big themes, but it’s his talent to amuse which keeps you on his side.
Amsterdam is both an epic and a satire – elaborately furnished with period detail, shot in gorgeous, saturated colour and peopled with likeable eccentrics. The most engaging are three friends who meet in Belgium during World War I – Burt Berendsen (Russell regular Christian Bale), a half-Jewish, half-Catholic doctor who has enlisted because his snooty in-laws believe that a distinguished war record will make him more acceptable to Park Avenue society; Harold Woodman (John David Washington), an African-American soldier infuriated by the regulation forcing black soldiers to fight with the French army because their fellow Americans won’t serve alongside non-whites. And Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie), a combat nurse who digs the shrapnel out of soldiers wounds and does everything she can to keep them alive.
She and Harold fall in love and after the war, the three of them spend an idyllic time together in Amsterdam before reluctantly returning to America and becoming caught up in a fascist conspiracy which again threatens their lives.
Anya Taylor-Joy as Libby, Rami Malek as Tom, Christian Bale as Burt, Robert De Niro as Gil, and Margot Robbie as Valerie in Amsterdam.Credit: 20th Century Studios.
We pick them up in 1933. Harold is now a lawyer and Burt is just as unpopular with his wife and her family because he’s chosen to devote himself to patching up his fellow veterans. And he has scars of his own. He’s lost an eye and he’s in constant pain from a back injury but his spirit is as robust as ever.
As he does with every role, Bale has totally transformed himself. Burt’s stoop is complemented by a network of scars across his eye, a croak in the voice and a full head of wiry curls. He looks deranged yet Bale ensures that you’re instantly won over by his kindness.
Robbie has fewer props but is just as impressive. She gives Valerie a wild glint in the eye and an unwavering air of determination while Washington is her calm counterpoint, a role also performed by Zoe Saldana as a nurse who loves Burt. And finally, Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy present a weirdly compelling double act as Valerie’s rich brother and his appallingly bigoted wife. It’s quite a gallery yet every performance is perfectly calibrated to suit the heightened style and absurdist tone of Russell’s direction.
His labyrinthine plot, which is loosely drawn from a shameful episode in American political history between the wars, is carried off with the same panache. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s a hugely entertaining piece of work and a very seductive one.
Amsterdam is in cinemas from October 6.
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