Sweet Nothings

American Hustle has been nominated for ten Oscars and Baftas, as well as seven Golden Globes (three wins), two Screen Actors Guild awards (winning best ensemble) and a host of others. It’s still not entirely clear why. Maybe because of its look? The film begins with a dishevelled Christian Bale painstakingly glueing on a hairpiece, and fashion-wise it boldly continues in this vein with all manner of alarming coiffures, ill-fitting suits, optimistic dresses and many other aesthetic atrocities. David O Russell and his production designers have clearly had a ball recreating the Seventies in all its shambolic glory and the actors lap it up too. But it surely can’t just be down to spectacle or else all manner of terrible films would be up for gongs too. Perhaps it’s the story. Con artist capers are a Hollywood mainstay and usually guarantee audience engagement thanks to the twists and turns. Hustle’s plot keeps expanding as Bale and Amy Adams’s small-time swindlers, once they...