Better than most movies at representing the time

Rating: 7/10 (18 April 2015)

I'm not quite understanding some of the downside reviews regarding this film play. It almost makes me ask if some of these people have seen more than two or three movies before, or have only now just noticed that movie script writing is far and away the lowest "art form" ever endured by any culture, before we start.
Neither The Godfather nor Goodfellas broke new ground in any sense. Indeed, they both relied upon deeply instilled pre-existing notions and stereotypes, including just a sprinkling of reality when convenient to the story. Pandering, patronizing, catering to the basest of 'instincts,' all wrapped up in a neat package (excellent directing and cinematography on a completely banal story, the Hollywood way). And I'm not sure if any movies were more 'self indulgent' than those two.
I'm not saying that this movie matches those two or other likewise ventures in grandeur, but it does have at least some semblance of an "Indie" treatment of the matter. Of course the movie is not "perfect" in telling the very non-simplified story at hand; there's no way that it -could- be. I don't see how one could tell a story as messy as this one with out the presentation itself being a bit 'messy' in some respects. (If you want grossly over simplified with fantastic production and classic actors, see reference in second paragraph above).
I have no complaints as to the acting (at least not much). Christian Bale seems to always be put in an acting role about half a notch 'above his level,' but by the end of the movie we (or some of us, at least) think it turned out just about right. Same here. Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were pretty darned good, indeed fantastic sometimes, so much as the script and story allowed. Both were a great strength to the movie, stole scenes as opportunity presented, etc., no question.
I have some gripes about the script writing, as always, but given the subject matter and the era being presented, I (and I hope that others) cannot overlook the fact that the women in this movie were far better represented and given a lot more credit in having more than two brain cells than in the much more popular 'Mafia standard' movies. The instance of Rosenfeld's wife (J Lawrence) explaining to him that she had started reading Wayne Dyer's books, so now they had to get a divorce, made me keel over, actually. But what mattered is that she took a notion to improve herself, and had gained a notion of an independent self at all, not a popular notion in that milieu.
It used to be so simple; "you marry my money, I marry your body," and now (in this movie) both parties come to the late conclusion that there's more to it than that, by both meeting new acquaintances and (in the case of the wife) actually reading books. Yes, by a (at the time) "new age Guru." But if she started reading books at all, she would have eventually moved beyond that. The salient point is that she ventured out beyond her "I'm so afraid of change" world at all.
Sorry for all the disappointment to others who started out with the intent of "trying to be generous" in inappropriately assigning the task of this film as being a follow up of any sort to the mafia classics, but there's a lot in this movie you missed out on in pursuit of that folly.