“Dumb Money” (2023) is the film adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s “The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees.” It is a dramatization of the events surrounding the January 2021 short squeeze[1], which involved trading in stock in Game Stop, AMC Theaters, and other allegedly ailing businesses on Robinhood, which meant more ordinary people were investing and major brokerages began to fail. One of those allegedly ordinary people is “Roaring Kitty” Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a humble Mass Mutual employee with a hobby. The film frames his antics on YouTube and Reddit as an everyman rallying cry to stick it to the man by leveraging the system’s rule against itself. The film features an ensemble cast to perform as the different types of people who got swept away in the trading phenomenon. When it works, the big guys change the rules again to reclaim the upper hand.
In the filmmaking world, there are two kinds of filmmakers: the filmmakers like Adam McKay who make “The Big Short” (2015) and the filmmakers who admired and want to make a film like “The Big Short.” “Dumb Money” is the latter. There is nothing wrong with trying to emulate a great movie, but it is a shame when the filmmakers are capable of their own innovative, unique greatness and instead of using their own voice as the foundation, lean on imitation. Australian director Craig Gillespie does great work: “Lars and the Real Girl” (2007), “Fright Night” (2011) and “I, Tonya” (2017). Cowriters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo had success with the book adapted online series “Orange is the New Black.” To be fair, it could be Mezrick’s book, not the movie, which is mimicking Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short.” Someone read both and report back.
“Dumb Money” disguises its lack of originality with frenetic pacing, popular rap tunes and a dialogue formulaic recipe: a dash of personal detail, a heaping dose of prose dump disguised as organic chatting and a joke. If the filmmakers want the audience to feel stress, multiple phones may ring, babies may cry, and the interruptions will have interruptions. It feels canned. The social media visual element is the equivalent of the commercialized Times Square—an energetic repackaging and repurposing of spontaneous online interactions. It is so infused with safe, good humor instead of the authentic skirting of vitriol and bitterness inherent in engaging with people online that it falls short of feeling authentic. All the profane language is not enough to make it feel real. The problem with movies about a recent era is that viewers have lived through it, and the event is still in recent memory, so it is harder to get lost in the movie and turn off the brain. It is hard not to compare the lived experience with the film.
“Dumb Money” is effective as a pandemic dystopian movie. While it is not unflinching (death is offscreen and only referenced), the movie does a superb job of showing the contrast between the haves and have nots. In each scene, notice the amount of space and light, the décor, colorful or drab tones, quality of food, amount of people and their function in that space (are they there voluntarily or as workers), car brands and years. It is disturbing that masks become symbols of repression—only workers are required to wear them or admonished to do so.
“Dumb Money” is propaganda…propaganda that I sympathize with, but propaganda, nevertheless. It frames revolution as making money at the expense of people who rely on others’ failure, a karmic turning of tables. It is toothless for casting likeable actors as the onscreen villains, specifically Seth Rogen as Gabe Plotkin, who appears more bumbling than the urbane real-life counterpart, Nick Offerman, who played a loveable curmudgeon in “Parks and Recreations,” as Ken Griffin, who appears more forgettable (and litigious) in real life, and the handsome, versatile character actor and Gillespie muse Sebastian Stan as Robinhood cofounder Vlad Tenev. The movie plays like a Saturday Night Live skit where everyone is amusing and engaging, which mollifies the real harm of these actors and this system. This type of revolution supports systemic destruction and the myth of individual success. The revolution has been swapped with a get rich scheme with Gillespie showing characters’ net worth, which symbolizes victory if it rises by the end of the film.
“Dumb Money” has infuriating regressive moments. For instance, once Roaring Kitty’s hobby hits the mainstream, he loses his job (resigned or fired). The film never tackles the practical, financial realities. The inequities of gender normative roles are reinforced. When the film first shows Roaring Kitty at home, his wife, Caroline Gill (Shailene Woodley) is a timeless image of the supportive, stay at home wife. Roaring Kitty is a good guy because he comes home and chooses to do the dishes. She is the chill cool girl because she stops him from engaging in housework, encourages him to have a beer and record one of his segments to blow off steam. Does she work? If he was out of work, is she balancing work inside and outside the home? This information is offered for most of the characters. The careers, locations and financial concerns define other supporting characters, but Caroline exists for her husband, not as an individual with her own individual worries. Roaring Kitty’s brother and parents get credits for their careers or lack thereof. If this couple can afford for Caroline to stay home, it undercuts his everyman status since most couples must work. Also a college-age, interracial lesbian couple in a mainstream movie is a positive note, but having them use “Where my pussy at” as their war cry feels like it is more about sexual objectification, not representation.
The cast is terrific, but it is also peculiar. Characters actors like Dano, Dane DeHaan, who plays a Game Stop manager, and Clancy Brown as Roaring Kitty’s father are usually cast as villains so they must have jumped at the chance to play comparatively normal men. The lack of resemblance between Dano, Brown, “Scandal” Vice President Kate Burton as Roaring Kitty’s mom and Pete Davidson as Roaring Kitty’s brother is startling, but the chemistry is top notch. America Ferrera as a broke single mom nurse is a solid addition to a strong year for Ferrera. The real standout is Stan with the shoulder squeeze signaling to his partner Baiju (Rushi Kota) to shut up while appearing soft spoken and sensitive.
“Dumb Money” is an entertaining, but garish movie that has the veneer of being subversive and educational. It is not. If you can overlook the lack of internal integrity and manipulation, and you enjoy movies like “The Big Short,” definitely check it out otherwise skip it.
[1] A short sell is when one borrows stock, sells that stock at a lower price, returns the borrowed stock to the lender and makes profit on the difference between the sold price and the cost for borrowing with the expectation that the business fail. A short squeeze occurs if the value of the stock goes up because then the short seller owes the difference. The rise in price forces the short seller to buy stock to minimize the loss, which further drives up the price.