As someone on the autism spectrum, I sometimes think what life would be like if my intense interest in cinema was instead in wall street.
I am not saying I wish that to be the case, but if it were, perhaps I may have had a chance at the whole GameStop issue from the start of 2021, and then clearly understand what is happening in the film based off of these events, Dumb Money.
It is rather remarkable that the film by director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya and Cruella), based off a book called “The Anti-Social Network”, came out this quickly as the events are roughly two and a half years ago. The rather hoarded cast of middle/lower class characters are fictitious, but not the character of the real life Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a.k.a. “Roaring Kitty” on YouTube. With some background knowledge, he believed in buying stock in the under valued GameStop stores, confusing the big wigs of Wall Street in the process. Some of those big wigs are actual people: Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio), and Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan).
The cast also includes Pete Davidson as Keith’s brother (in a role only Pete Davidson could really play), Shailene Woodley as Keith’s wife, and other fictional characters played by the likes of America Ferrerra, Anthony Ramos, Dane DeHaan, and Talia Ryder.
I’m not sure how far back a film must go in time to be considered a “period piece”, but that is the best way I can describe how well Dumb Money captures the feel of the pandemic. Many of the characters have to communicate either through a face mask or from a distance, and some are reminded to keep their masks on (at least one character has to be reminded he is on mute during an important zoom call.)
What keeps this movie from being a great film is it did not go the extra step. No doubt the film this will be compared to (and indeed has been already) is 2015’s The Big Short. While that film was indeed confusing (I have yet to revisit it), the makers of the film (mainly Adam Mckay) knew that it would be, so he shoe horned in scenes with the likes of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez. Dumb Money is just missing a little extra bite to it.
Parents, this movie is a grown up movie about grown ups. While there is no sex in the film, the characters are talking like there are no kids around (the only one is the infant of Dano’s character). The R rating is justified here.
Along with films like the aforementioned The Big Short, The Social Network (2010), and Moneyball (2011), Dumb Money is not in the same realm of those films when it comes to quality, but it is still worth a little stock.
Overall:
Nothing else to say 