Too Big to Fail is a drama that depicts the 2008 financial crisis. I love a good apocalypse movie, but financial apocalypses may be the most realistic and least fun within the genre. Give me a sober documentary from PBS’ Frontline over clunky dialogue delivered by excellent actors in an attempt to educate an audience in dramatizations of real life events in movies like Too Big to Fail. Even the HBO stamp of excellence is not a guarantee to viewers. For me, what was most off-putting was the idea that Too Big to Fail needed a hero.
Too Big to Fail’s hero is US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. I now know that Paulson was a Christian Scientist because he refuses drugs from Eric Forman/former Venom addict, which is just a sensible decision. I’m sure that Too Big to Fail thrilled audiences because some viewers may get a vicarious thrill from pretending to see how the titans of the business world act behind closed doors, but it is a movie even if it is based on a non-fiction book. I highly doubt that the female CFO, Erin Callan, of Lehman Brothers would act more like an assistant and help her boss with his tie. The other high level female in the cast is Michelle Davis, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Public Relations and Director of Policy Planning, and it is not until almost the end of Too Big to Fail that she realizes what all the fuss is about and becomes dismayed!
Movies based on real events like Too Big to Fail are usually sausage fests that pretend that women are only on the sidelines as supportive staff or significant others to notable men in the world of finance. Women are usually the whistle blowers in financial crisis. Too Big to Fail failed to depict women as at least completely capable of understanding the BS unfolding around them as they are silenced by the mansplainers around them. Will we ever get a movie about notable Cassandras such as Alayne Fleischmann, Sherry Hunt, Sheila Bair or Brooksley Born? Nope, we’ll get an Oscar nominated movie like The Big Short, which I have not seen yet. Women like me are not interested in yet another work of fiction presented as fact. Too Big to Fail is an excellently executed establishment propaganda piece disguised as a revolutionary look at our financial world.