Amsterdam (20th Century, R)
Sometimes movies come out that have an all star cast and you have no desire to go see them. I immediately recall movies like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, and perhaps that is a little harsh. Those movies have a very specific genre and audience. One that often aligns more easily with Hallmark holiday films and cheap rom-coms and chick-flicks. Now don’t get me wrong, I love those, in my own way. If you were to tell me there was a time and place for those movies I would quickly agree, and add the time for those things coincides with chilly weather, hot chocolate, and cuddles. Sometimes, however, ensemble casts are assembled with the purpose of enacting a story with surprising depth and unmistakable cultural relevance.
The plot of Amsterdam is loosely based on the real world events concerning the “Business Plot,” a conspiracy detailed by Major General Smedly Butler in 1933. The plot itself pointed to notable business people in the United States who desired to remove president Franklin D. Roosevelt from office and replace him with a more fascistic, ex-military leader. A tactic that had been utilized in, at the time, budding fascistic regimes in Germany and Italy. To be clear, much of the Business Plot, in actuality, was hard to prove. Almost all of the indicated bad actors denied involvement, and those who could be found to have made some effort assembling a coup were assessed as having been far too early in the process to be considered a danger to the country. Despite this, it is hard to tell if Butler’s speech detailing the plot, truly interrupted what could have been a truly impactful plot or more the wistful thinking of fascistic monied elite.
Where Amsterdam chooses to center its plot is on a cabinet of fictionalized characters, as they come into contact with the edges of this group of conspirators, and follows them as they stumble their way into this vision of reality-in-the-works. We’re quickly introduced to Burt Berendsen, played by the effortlessly talented Christian Bale, and Harold Woodman, played by rising talent John David Washington. The two are Great War veterans, and due to the latter being a black man, they together have endured an easily estimable amount of animosity and prejudice. Together, in 1933, they run an experimental medical practice in New York, catering to the needs of underserved veterans. Early, Berendsen is asked by his friend Woodman, to perform an autopsy one Bill Meekins, the man who commanded their regiment in World War I and a current senator. His daughter Liz, played by Taylor Swift, is convinced that his death is suspicious.
With that set up, things quickly start to descend into chaos. The result of their autopsy is conclusive, but when they attempt to relay their findings that Bill was poisoned, an interested party intervenes, attempting to protect their interests. Then, in a bit of a surprising tactic, we are thrust back fifteen years. Here we find out how Burt and Harold met, in the war. We meet Margot Robbie’s Valerie, a woman working as a nurse in a ward of injured soldiers that our two boys have found themselves in. Harold falls in love with Valerie practically immediately (can you blame him?) and the three of them, with the war concluded, find a place in Amsterdam to call home and live their dream lives. Of course the dream comes to an end. Burt is a doctor and wants to return home to help. He is also married, and though his wife and in-laws sent him off to the war, he hopes to have earned their respect. Harold hopes to return to the states to earn his law degree and, similar to his friend, help the veterans. With that, the flash back ends, and we’re right back in the thick of it.
Throughout the duration of Amsterdam we are given glimpses back at goings-on, leaving the impression very quickly that what you are watching is, in fact, a mystery movie. A bit of a 1930’s whodunit. Accordingly the first act of the film is thematically chaotic and organizationally jumbled. In its better executed moments, it feels identifiably like a collection of misdirections and red herrings. In its more shaky moments the experience is disorienting. Unlike many of my compatriots in attendance, my guest and I didn't take this as poor filmmaking, but rather a deliberate attempt to scramble your brain.
There is this kind of impatience that plagues viewers recently. In America at the very least, but seemingly globally, people jump to conclusions in the earliest moments of a work, make their opinions known (thanks social media) and then view the remainder of that work with that lens. If something is confusing or not what you expect it to be, you berate it for not making sense or ruining continuity. This is especially egregious in the Star Wars and Marvel communities. Then, when the show most often comes back around to explain the narrative decisions from earlier with plot developments later, those voices always seem to do one of two things: Vanish completely or deride the work for being “uneven” or “disconnected.” I asked my guest after the film, “I wonder if todays audience watched something like Ocean’s Eleven if they would make it to the end before deciding the movie was too confusing to follow. I’m not sure how I test this hypothesis. I will return later with ideas.
In the end Amsterdam worked very well for me. Not just as a harebrained mystery. Where the plot was fast and confusing at times, it always seemed to fall in line with how the characters were acting. They were constantly on their toes, constantly trying to put things together. Having the feeling myself is a sort of accomplishment of filmmaking. But it’s in the films final twenty minutes, as things all come together, I felt the most tied to what was happening on screen. Deep down, and it could be argued it’s not all that deep, this movie is about resisting oppression and fascism. The way that story is told, through the eyes of a disenfranchised doctor who wants to help underserved veterans, a black lawyer who wants to support those veterans legally, and an artistic woman who believes that people can live outside of the machinations of capitalism and oppression, ends up being surprisingly rousing. Is it, at times, a shade heavy handed in its messaging? Yes. But I could argue that being subtle with things of this nature leaves more room for people to misinterpret your intention. The only people then, that would be annoyed by this message, would be a specific brand of person that has grown tired of the message that nazis are bad, racism is evil, and love should guide our actions before hatred should. And honestly, those people can all get bent.
Amsterdam isn’t perfect but it has a lot of heart where it counts. The cast is astronomically loaded, the performances are all genuine and convincing, and its message will land a lot closer to home than it should. Largely because Americans are confronted with issues no one from this era (the 30s) would have expected us to still be dealing with. It’s fascinating, confounding, and moving. Things I imagine anyone forging a mystery would hope people took away from their work.
~Caleb