KEITH on Reels

Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria best known for 2012’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Hustlers is a surprisingly smart and entertaining movie for having a plot revolving around New York City strippers and is remarkable for undoubtedly the best performance ever given by Jennifer Lopez. Based on a real life story, the narrative is primarily told by a former stripper named Destiny, played by Constance Wu best known for her role in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians, to a journalist, played by Julia Stiles. In a series of elongated flashbacks, Destiny first enters the world of stripping in 2007 as a means of financially supporting her grandmother but soon begins to want more money to live a more luxurious lifestyle. She meets a older yet extremely popular stripper named Ramona, played by the terrific Jennifer Lopez, who teaches her how to pole dance and the tricks of getting the most money from the male clientele. After the financial crisis only a year later, Destiny and Ramona part ways, with both women in financial distress due to the decreasing number of strip club attendance. Eventually, Destiny returns to stripping and teams up with Ramona once again but this time with a illegal scheme to steal money from their wealthy patrons. Two other strippers are also enlisted in the fraud in which they go to bars and restaurants to attract wealthy men and take them to the strip club where the women max out their credit cards. They are able to to get away with the scam because they drug the targets so they do not realize what is happening and lose memory of the events the next day. Over time, Ramona gets reckless in order to make even more money and ultimately gets her in trouble and harms her close relationship with Destiny. Yes, the film is visually dazzling as a result of the stylish and provocative strip clubs sequences, but there is unexpected depth to the storyline that explores the complex dynamics between stripper and patron. It also touches on the subject of wealth inequality in that the financially desperate protagonists decide to take advantage of mostly Wall Street wealthy patrons who only see the women as a means for their sexual gratification. Overall, I found it to be a terrific film, filled with powerful acting, that is able to tell a truly unique and nuanced story about a group of strippers taking control of their lives by using an an illicit scheme.