Dumb Money

 

Score:  B+

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Starring Paul Dano, America Ferrera, Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, Shailene Woodley, et. al.

Running time: 104 minutes

Rated R

Long Story Short:  Dumb Money brings the stranger-than-fiction GameStop stock saga to the big screen with an impressive cast of Hollywood faces.  Recalling events barely three years old, the movie focuses on its large and wide-ranging cast along with some stylish presentation (internet memes galore) for good measure.  Opinions can and will vary on the success - and desirability - of the real life outcomes, but check it out for some thoughtful entertainment.

Keith (Dano) is struggling along with his wife and baby through the pandemic like the rest of the world in 2020.  His main escape from the daily challenges is his interest in the stock market and posting videos about it on an internet forum, Reddit.  Although an old friend, who has investing experience, thinks he's crazy, Keith devotes his family's life savings into GameStop, a stock that he feels is undervalued.  It is also one that several big hedge funds are betting will soon fail, and if it does, their "short squeeze" will further enrich them.  A confluence of events in the wild world of 2020, however, results in GameStop stock surging, with Keith - internet name "Roaring Kitty" - leading the charge.

Dumb Money is an entertaining dramatization of the fascinating and recent real-life "meme stock" phenomenon.  It doesn't dive too deeply into the complex human and technical issues, but it doesn't really have to - they jump off the screen at you, and the filmmakers turn a fairly online-heavy story into a stylish one.  Dealing with complex financial systems and highly idiosyncratic online cultures, Dumb Money had quite a challenge in making a watchable drama.  Fortunately, a large cast of talented actors help bring it to life.  Paul Dano is a natural choice as the lead, one of Hollywood's more "ordinary" looking faces and easy to believe as, well, a dork.  He is superhero-like in a way, with his family role as husband, father, and dull day job while his alter ego as "Roaring Kitty", a leader of like-minded internet and stock addicts, is far different.  While Dano shows a few moments of embracing his sudden fame and power, he's mostly pretty unassuming and mild-mannered - a good choice that feels much more genuine than if he was completely transformed by the end.  It also helps that Dano has plenty of help; the standouts to me were Pete Davidson as his jovial bum of a brother and Rogen's ruthless but very human hedge funder.  Both are quite funny but also provide some of the film's strongest dramatic moments.  Offerman, Ron from Parks & Rec, is of course a welcome face in a small role, and Marvel's Stan shows a new side as Robinhood's CEO - at times a goofy bungler and at others an evil schemer (one of the film's more cartoonish parts but not overboard). Then there are several everyday people who get in on the GameStop stock ride, including Ferrera in the put-upon working woman role she always excels at, and Ramos (In the Heights), who still really rubs me the wrong way; he just feels like that asshole you knew from high school - maybe it's just me, though.

Dumb Money, beyond its cast, does a good job of showing the stock roller coaster ride, even if still proves difficult to sustain effectively throughout.  The filmmakers pulled quite a bit of original video content that was produced during the GameStock surge, largely edited videos portraying the Robinhood "good guys" taking on the hedge fund "bad guys".  A contemporary hip-hop soundtrack also helps set the mood (though I found a lot of it distasteful, IMO).  This styling helps recreate the 2020-21 environment of these events, so while the repeated drama of "oh wow, look how high the stock is now!" grows old, the movie sustains momentum well, helped by its good cast.  It's impossible - well, at least for me - not to also get sucked into the real life issues involved in the story.  The movie portrays Keith and his kindred spirits as the good guys, and ultimately shows them as being successful, even if it's hazy on the details (and the final results, of course, are yet to be determined).  I sympathize with this, at least to the extent that I believe everyone should be able to lead a secure and relatively comfortable life no matter their occupation; no one should have to take wild gambles simply to dig out of (responsible) debt or to afford housing.  But the GameStop model for the little guy to succeed is a terrible one; Ferrera's nurse friend adroitly explains why, but the movie doesn't show any of the probably numerous individuals who lost a lot in the end.  What the world needs (pardon the brief soapbox) is not high risk-reward hero's adventures but boring old government regulation to ensure, to the extent possible, that the economy works for everyone - and when the economy still falls short, to make the lucky few who strike it rich pay back to society to support the many unlucky.  You don't have to agree with me on all this to find that the movie provides a great opportunity to consider duller yet urgent issues underneath the surface of all the excitement.

***

Dumb Money, while not quite an Oscar-contender-level drama, was still a nice way to start off the fall movie season.  I'm often leery of seeing movies or TV shows about recent events or famous people, but this one didn't seem as exploitative or simply lazy as many others do - and I was right!  At the moment, despite its star-packed cast, it's made only about $12 million; that might be partly due to not being in as many theaters as others.  At the moment, most theaters seem to be offering 13,415 horror movies, Paw Patrol, and Taylor Swift.  Ugh.  So if you do find Dumb Money playing at a theater near you, I recommend you go see it!  Until next time, which will hopefully hold another pleasant surprise.

* By Sony Pictures Releasing - IMP Awards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74449492