De Niro and Pfeiffer shine in HBO’s ‘Wizard of Lies’
The film delves into the emotional toll on scam’s victims, Madoff family
Deep into “The Wizard of Lies,” HBO’s impressive retelling of Bernie Madoff’s epic financial scam, is a chilling scene that depicts Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer — as Madoff and his wife Ruth — casually preparing to commit suicide.
They’ve rounded up all the Ambien they could find in their Manhattan penthouse and downed them like M& Ms. Now clad in their pajamas, they’re watching from bed the holiday flick “Meet Me in St. Louis.” On the TV screen, Judy Garland is singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and promising that by “next year all our troubles will be miles away.”
Of course, the Ambien didn’t take and the troubles for the Madoffs were only just beginning. After orchestrating an elaborate Ponzi scheme that led to financial ruin for many of his investors, the disgraced financier was arrested in 2008 and is serving a 150year prison sentence.
The film, deftly directed by Barry Levinson and based on journalist Diana B. Henriques’ book of the same name, recounts how Madoff pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. But it’s much less interested in connecting the strategic dots than examining the emotional toll Madoff’s deception took on his many victims, including his family.
To play the devastated Ruth, Pfeiffer takes on a Queens accent that isn’t so
so thick that it’s cartoonish. She’s about to lose to incarceration her husband of 50 years — the man she calls “my lifeline” — and Pfeiffer, all raw and fragile, has a way of cracking open your heart.
The film also casts Madoff’s adult sons, Mark (Alessandro Nivola) and Andrew ( Nathan Darrow), as tragic figures. Although they worked for their father’s investment firm, they reportedly knew nothing of his misdeeds. However, Madoff’s victims — and a large swath of the public — don’t buy it. Trapped in a media fish bowl, the sons are harassed and vilified to the breaking point.
As for De Niro, it’s just a pleasure to see one of the greatest actors of our time not sharing the screen with someone named Focker. After taking lots of flak in recent years for coasting through middling films and lightweight comedies, he’s back in a meaty, if not showy, role.
His performance, in fact, is mainly embedded in subdued facial expressions as Levinson repeatedly moves the camera in for extreme, carefully observed closeups. It should come as no surprise that, through it all, De Niro’s Madoff remains an enigma — an android-like con man prone to blank stares and remorseless, matter- of-fact statements when questioned about his reprehensible actions.
You find yourself gazing into those melancholy eyes, trying to locate the monster behind them.