August: Osage County (2014)

Adapting a stage play for the screen is a tricky business.

12 Years A Slave (2013)

There are films that we say we want to see; others that we say we ought to see. Sometimes, these two motives coalesce. More often that not, however, the prospect of a weighty, historical drama with a personal tale of abduction, betrayal, and persecution at its core is a daunting one. Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave, as its title suggests, really is a gruelling ride.

Based on actual memoirs, the narrative centres on the harrowing experiences of Solomon Northup, a New York-born musician who was taken hostage and sold into slavery for over a decade in the mid-nineteenth century. Northup is astutely and agonisingly underplayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who uses physical gestures and silence to convey the slave's reality as one of slow, monotonous horror. He is joined by much touted newcomer Lupita Nyong'o, who gives a dignified and restrained performance as the shockingly abused Patsey.

Slavery, despite its impact on our historical consciousness, is rarely tackled by filmmakers, perhaps because it has left such a complex and unresolved legacy in contemporary race relations. As director, McQueen crucially avoids the exuberant, slapstick violence of a film like Quentin Tarantino's Djano Unchained, using much more subtly affecting strategies to gradually construct a picture of unrelenting suffering. His camera doesn't look away when the lashes of Michael Fassbender's slave owner seem to reach a climax. Instead, he holds his gaze, disregarding the traditional pattern of pain followed by a release. There is no way out here, for the victim or the viewer.

The problem with McQueen's fidelity to cinematic realism is that, as the violence goes on, the experience becomes unbearable and, subsequently, numbing. There is no antidote, as perhaps there shouldn't be for a crime still awaiting atonement. But this makes for a very difficult two and a half hours in the cinema, which is not helped by the fact that Northup's personal history is somewhat underdeveloped. I thought that the depiction of his family home in New York merited more attention, as it would have given his escape route a more concrete endpoint: a destination the audience could have imagined with him as a counter to the hell of the deep South. Moreover, it may be a beautifully shot film, born of McQueen's aesthetically-attuned artist's eye, but the script seemed fairly uninspired, using dialogue only to generate specific incidents or create moments of visual tension.

Whilst undoubtedly captivating, perhaps in the sense that it holds its viewers captive as much as it commands their attention, 12 Years A Slave is a devastating film. Its shockwaves were felt long after the credits rolled onto the screen and people milled around outside the cinema, already trying to forget. A towering visual achievement; it is almost unwatchable.

American Hustle (2013)

And hustle it does, in more ways than one. This is a prime example of a film succeeding spectacularly on its own steam. It has the golden cast - Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper - and the writer-director of the moment, David O. Russell, who has pulled it off again one year after Silver Linings Playbook swept the awards season. American Hustle is a glitzier, trashier version of Silver Linings, using the same combination of cynicism and saccharine screwball to charm audiences into thinking it might actually have something to say.

This may sound unfair, but a film with ten (!) Academy Award nominations should surely be held to a higher standard than most. And, in some respects, it does have a lot going for it. The first ten minutes, in which Christian Bale's balding, bloated con-artist, Irving Rosenfeld, reconstructs his hairpiece are brilliantly played out with painstaking precision. The scene makes a strong statement about Hustle's intentions: get the superficial stuff right, and the rest will follow. But that's where the real problem lies. This is a film full of wigs and mirrors, where the costumes are not just the disguise but the substance itself.

Oh, but what wigs! Bradley Cooper apparently spent more time in hair and makeup than any other cast member and it certainly shows in his perfectly sculpted 70's curls. He plays FBI agent Richie DiMaso, who attempts to carve a career for himself by playing ball with the very people he is supposed to be incarcerating. His efforts to ensnare local politician Carmine Polito (a subtle turn from Jeremy Renner) lead to a convoluted double bluff, in which Rosenfeld and his partner Sydney Prosser (Adams) become both puppets and puppeteers. Bale and Adams do put on a great show, although the suggestion that their romance might become the poignant heart of the film is somewhat lost as they spend gradually less time alone together on screen.

On the sidelines but always threatening to steal the limelight is Jennifer Lawrence as Rosalyn, Rosenfeld's magnificently deranged wife, whose description is probably the film's best line: 'she was the Picasso of passive aggressive karate.' Passive is a stretch. Rosalyn repeatedly sets fire to her home, and nearly gets her husband killed by blowing his cover to her mafia boyfriend. Lawrence might well make it a double and win Best Supporting Actress this year; of all of the cast, she probably deserves it the most.

Despite the fun and the glamour of it all, what finally emerges is a film overly confident of its own appeal. Certainly, it is entertaining and gamely performed, but it is also too long (138 minutes), too repetitive, and too wrapped up in its glossy aesthetic. There is not much more to it than the conning of the title implies: it is a flashy surface display but when the wigs are removed, beneath it is disappointingly bare.