TIFF’23: Dumb Money is anything but dumb
Posted September 8, 2023 8:08 pm.
The GameStop short squeeze of 2021 was a strange financial phenomenon. It taught many about the complexities of shorting (where investors essentially invest against the success of a stock) and a short squeeze (where the price of a stock is artificially inflated, and the investors who shorted it have to sell their stock as their shorting value decreases). Many regular people who weren’t on Wall Street continued to pour money into buying GameStop stock, mystifying many. This film breaks it down simply, and takes a complicated financial story and turns it into a human story.
https://twitter.com/JamesMackin10/status/1700298416247423064
Dumb Money dramatizes the short squeeze by focusing on a large ensemble cast with multiple viewpoints. It centers the film around the man who first liked the stock, Keith Gill (played by Paul Dano from the Batman and the Fabelmans). During the COVID-19 pandemic he took to Reddit and streaming online to share his appreciation for GameStop as a stock, and taught many about how to invest for yourself, which led to many people buying stock in GameStop.
While Gill is the instigator of this story, what’s spectacular about this film how much it shows everyone affected by this. From the regular people who watch Gill’s videos and invest, including America Ferrera (from Barbie) as a nurse struggling to stay afloat, Talia Ryder (from Never Rarely Sometimes Always) as a college student severely impacted by the 2008 recession, and Vincent D’Onofrio (from Daredevil) as hedge fund manager Steve Cohen. Those are just some of the many names appearing here, Dumb Money easily has one of the best ensembles at the festival this year.
Nick Offerman and Seth Rogan star in DUMB MONEY, courtesy of Elevation Pictures.
The film deals with really tough matters in two ways. Firstly it’s breaking down a complicated financial concept that many might not understand unless they’re an investor or they’ve seen the Big Short. But Craig Gillespie (from Lars and the Real Girl) does a great job of breaking this down simply by highlighting the various perspectives of people involved in it, and that’s the second way this film excels in dealing with tough matters. Many of us struggled during the pandemic, and all the characters’ struggles are depicted with empathy (there’s even some empathy for the investor whose biggest pandemic struggle were the complications involved with building a tennis court beside his house).
Dumb Money is a film you can expect finance bros to want to show you at some point. But don’t worry, it’s actually great. This film gets a 4.5/5, and if you can’t see it during the festival it’ll be opening in theatres nationwide before the month is up.
