Monday Movie Review: Hustlers
Alright. Hopefully I’ve made it pretty clear at this point that I will see any movie written and/or directed by a woman. I want these (very few) movies to do well at the box office because it’s the only way we will ever get more movies written and directed by women. So I will see them all, whether I’m interested or not. And more often than not, I love them. But rarely are they so FUCKING AMAZING I HAVE TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS. Guys. Hustlers is fucking. amazing.
Based on a true story, Hustlers is about a group of exotic dancers in New York City who are making bank, until the recession of 2008 hits and all their Wall Street clients can no longer afford them. Suddenly they are forced to look for minimum wage jobs they can’t get hired for and the financial struggle is real. So they take matters into their own hands and come up with a plan to drug some of their former clients and charge thousands of dollars on their credit cards. Their operation goes from definitely illegal but mostly on the up and up, to crazy shit is happening and someone could get killed. The women are eventually caught and prosecuted.
There is so much to love about this movie. Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, it’s a master class in storytelling. The way it is told through a combination of flashbacks and interview snippets (the story of the women originally came from a New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler) is perfection. It’s funny and horrifying and gut-wrenching all at the same time.
But clearly, the standout reason this film is amazeballs is because of the performances. Jennifer Lopez plays Ramona, who is the ringleader of the operation, and she is magnificent. Honestly, she should be winning all the awards for this role. Constance Wu (humble brag, she was totally a guest at a wedding I coordinated, pre Crazy Rich Asians) plays Ramona’s protege Destiny. Both of them turn in Oscar worthy performances, and the supporting cast (which includes Julie Stiles, Keke Palmer, and Lili Reinhart, with cameos by Lizzo and Cardi B) is probably the strongest of any film this year.
On the surface, this is a movie about exotic dancers who drug and take advantage of men. But in reality, it’s about friendship and motherhood and sisterhood and found family and feminism and misogyny and basically every topic I care about in relation to my real life. Like I’ve never related to characters on so many different levels before.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Hustlers is a masterpiece and everyone needs to get their ass to a theater immediately to see it. I’ll probably see it again because it’s that good. A+ times a thousand.
