Lili Reinhart, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, and Constance Wu in Hustlers (Photo: Barbara Nitke/STXfilms)
The movie Hustlers takes place in 2007 New York City. Constance Wu stars as Dorothy, a stripper struggling to make ends meet and caring for her grandmother, who becomes smitten with the club’s veteran Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), who takes Dorothy under her wing and shows her the ropes and how to make the most money with certain customers.
After the stock market crash of 2008, the two women find themselves forced to take things to extremes by coming up with new ways to make money when the usual Wall Street clientele that frequented the club are no longer showing up with money to blow.
Along with two newcomers, Mercedes and Annabelle, they come up with a plan to mix ketamine and MDMA to drug men at bars and then bring them back to the club and run up charges on their cards. When a man calls them to question any charges the next day, they tell him that they seemed to be having a fun night. Ramona knows that these men won’t go to the police saying that they were robbed by a bunch of strippers out of embarrassment. Unfortunately for them, things don’t always go as planned and the walls start to close in on the women as Ramona grows desperate to keep their operation running.
Being a film centered around women in the sex industry, having a woman (Lorene Scafaria) as both its writer and director greatly helps subvert it from the male gaze, as Hustlers is much more character driven than one would expect going in. It isn’t so much a movie about strippers than it is a movie about women that happen to be strippers.
We are able to see Dorothy’s financial struggles from the beginning and her reasoning for cozying up to Ramona – someone she sees is making money and quickly finds out has her own ambitions, beyond being one of the clubs top earners, as a fashion designer. There isn’t much actual stripping in Hustlers past the first few minutes when Ramona is introduced with a dazzling performance to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” and a scene shortly after where Ramona is
showing Dorothy some of the best moves on the pole.
Instead, Hustlers lets us know these women and who they are, so we understand why they are committing these crimes and can even sympathize with them at times when we know what they are doing is illegal. Wu gives a great performance as Dorothy as the film spans 2007 through 2014 and we see her go from an unconfident novice to an assertive go-getter to a guilt-ridden accomplice. Lopez also gives a good performance as the take-no-prisoners mother figure Ramona. Lili Reinhart (Annabelle) and, especially, Keke Palmer (Mercedes) provide some nice comic relief as the stakes continue to rise. The movie is rounded out with an excellent soundtrack from the years of its setting.
The film is based on the December 2015 New York magazine article “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler and in the film Julia Stiles plays the role of a journalist writing the article in 2014. The movie is intercut with scenes of Dorothy recounting her experiences at the club and with Ramona to her.
Hustlers is more than it appears on the surface and a happy medium between a smaller character driven movie and a fun popcorn flick.
