This entire article has been rambling on about how great a year for film 2013 was and this entry examines an interest subsection of that greatness. 2013 was a year for filmic eviscerations of unchecked capitalism and the idea that the possession of money and material goods equals happiness and/or morality. Pain & Gain, The Bling Ring, Spring Breakers, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Counselor. A broad black comedy from Hollywood’s unofficial king of explosions. A true crime story from a Hollywood scion who studies societal privilege. A surreal mixture of Girls Gone Wild and experimental filmmaking from an man who has made a career out of being an enfant terrible. A searing comedy about greed and America’s big lie about money from one of film’s grandmasters. An examination of the nature of evil from a great technician and a legendary novelist.
These five films cover a large range of storytelling styles, filmmaking techniques, character development and relation to the real world. The Wolf of Wall Street leaves Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) relatively unpunished for his illegal, unethical manipulation of the stock market because that is what has happened to Belfort specifically and Wall Street-based criminals generally. Spring Breakers takes place in a crazed, glossy version of Florida inhabited by James Franco’s Alien, a drug dealer and rapper who claims to be from another planet and could well be given how utterly bizarre he is. Pain & Gain is a partially fictionalized look at the murderous Sun Gym gang, changing details, combining gang members and generally making reality broader, but sticks to what actually happened in regards to who the Gang hurt and the fallout of their actions, as well as some of the more baffling moments that only happen in real life (an attempted kidnapping involving ninja costumes, an attempt to destroy fingerprints and the sheer resilience that people are capable of under pressure, amongst other things). The Bling Ring changes names, but nails the way celebrity culture works, from the way famous people are idolized to the way that those who want to be famous react to getting famous. The Counselor is a journey to a place where, to quote Rubén Blades’ character, “You are at a cross in the road and here you think to choose. But here there is no choosing. There is only accepting. The choosing was done long ago.”
But as disparate and diverse as these five films are, they share a key moment, and every time that moment is powerful. To embark on a life of crime for personal benefit, or to pursue the American Dream regardless of the costs is to ensure that at some point you will find yourself alone, with few or no options left, and you will have come to that point by your own actions. It’s Belfort’s cocaine-fueled attempt to kidnap his own daughter rather than face a divorce from his wife Naomi (Margot Robbie), who is fed up with the hollow life she and Belfort lead and Belfort’s insistence that he is a good husband. It’s Faith (Selena Gomez) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) reaching the point where they cannot continue with the criminal bacchanal that their spring break has become, and Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Britt (Ashley Benson) driving into the sunrise towards an uncertain future after the death of Alien and their assassination of his rival Big Arch (Gucci Mane). It’s the fall of the Sun Gym Gang when Ed Du Bois (Ed Harris) and Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) finally manage to get the Miami-Dade Police to move on the gang. They are taken one by one. Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) is praying for forgiveness. Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) is showering. Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) manages to temporarily evade capture, only to get brought down in Bahamas. It’s Marc Hall (Israel Broussard) checking Rebecca Ahn (Katie Chang)’s Facebook page only to find that she’s made her page private after the Bling Ring is brought down. It’s the Counselor sitting alone in a hotel room in Mexico, sobbing and screaming as he realizes what the package he has just received contains.
Each of these pictures comes to that point of isolation and despair by a different route, and each of their characters reacts to it in a different way. But as diverse as their reactions are (Belfort breaks down but later rebounds, Britt and Candy drive on, Daniel Lugo runs, Marc Hall has nothing to say and the Counselor is completely and utterly broken), the characters in 2013’s assorted examinations of the American Dream lose quite a bit, and find themselves isolated. Whether that loss and isolation is worth it varies amongst them, but seeing what greed and the desire to have more can lead people to is always powerful. That 2013 has so many interesting films about that corruption is a testament to the individual works’ quality and the quality of the year as a whole.