The general rule with films about the economy is that you have to make them entertaining. Spreadsheet formulas and taxable municipal bonds do not a compelling movie make. The Big Short, Adam McKay’s rollicking dispatch from the ruins of the 2008 financial crash, was the (sub)prime example of this approach, transforming dull-as-dishwater concepts into a pacy comic thriller that even those of us with overdrafts could understand.
![Dumb Money](https://images.bauerhosting.com/empire/2023/09/dumb-money-2.jpg?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
Dumb Money doesn’t go quite as hard as that — there is no Margot Robbie explaining mortgage-backed bonds in a bubble bath — but it feels like it is playing in the same playground. Like The Big Short, it follows an ensemble of people (here: a single mum, a college student, a hedge-fund manager, a stock-market nerd) at the vanguard of a late-stage capitalism anomaly; and like that film, it tells a cautionary tale about complex concepts with layman-friendly ease — in this case, the concept of ‘short squeezes’. The GameStop saga (which happened only a couple of years ago; you may remember the headlines) saw regular-joe investors take on hedge-fund billionaires, triggering a ‘short squeeze’ that left previously sleepy shares suddenly extremely volatile.
![Dumb Money](https://images.bauerhosting.com/empire/2023/09/dumb-money-1.jpg?auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
If that sounds dry, fear not. It helps, of course, that the source material on which this is based, Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book The Antisocial Network, appears to be inherently farcical, filled with stranger-than-fiction little details. Our main character, Keith Gill (a playful Paul Dano), is a stocks genius who goes by the online monikers ‘Roaring Kitty’ and ‘Deep Fucking Value’, offering financial advice while dipping chicken tenders into a champagne glass, and gains an audience from a Reddit community who communicate primarily in memes. This is a story about how the entire American economy fluctuated when Elon Musk decided to tweet, “Gamestonk!!”
The David-and-Goliath stakes are set in stark, contrasting terms.
Director Craig Gillespie, who has carved out a nice niche for himself telling real-life tales with satirical verve and wit (I, Tonya, Pam & Tommy), recognises the absurdity of all this, and keeps things stylish, breezy and bold. Yet the real-world consequences of the story are kept at hand: each character is introduced with their name and their estimated net worth, ranging from $16 billion to minus $45K, which sets the David-and-Goliath stakes in stark, contrasting terms.
That tension does not run especially deep; the ultimate message of this film, that Wall Street billionaire fat cats need taking down a peg or two, is hardly a new one. But it’s told so fluently and funnily, with a broad, capable, watchable cast (especially the Pam & Tommy alumni, Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman and Sebastian Stan, all having against-type fun), that by the end, you’ll find yourself wanting to invest in GameStop, too.