Title: Practically Perfect
Product review: This film, with Chinatown, and Casablanca, must be one of the top three American movies ever made. The story, dialogue, acting, pace, background detail, direction, lighting, music, the lot, are virtually flawless in all three cases. Although Casablanca has more humour, it leaves you, like the other two, with a better understanding of the way life really is. Particularly if you have anything romantic in your soul. Romance is partly a desire for love and glory, but also a sense of loss. It's facing up to the loss that is character-forming. Maybe the subtlety of The Hustler is that the Piper Laurie character is shown as needing a dependent figure she can feel superior to. When Newman is himself crippled, she recovers from her booze addiction, and her flaw is that she doesn't in fact want him to be strong. In a way, this is an unresolved element in the plot. Perhaps Chinatown is the better and even more perfectly rounded film. But The Hustler is still a very great achievement.
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