Yeah, Dumb Money isn’t brilliant. It’s a formulastic Hollywood movie – but sometimes, dumbing it down is the right way to go.
Dumb Money tells the story of the GameStop stock rise in early 2021 that was encouraged by YouTuber Roaring Kitty followed by the sub-reddit /WallStreetBets. While other Wall Street Hollywood movies discussed big stock-exchange market events that happened a decade or more ago, the GameStop incident is a lot more recent and anyone who would watch this movie in theaters probably already knows a thing or two about what happened.
I will go ahead and say that there’s nothing particularly interesting about the artistic side of this movie. It hasn’t taken any steps further besides just telling the story, and even though it manages to do so engagingly, I don’t feel like I cared much about the people involved on any side of this story.
It seems like the creators wanted to convey a sense of how this issue has touched the lives of many people in America – from the single mother hospital nurse to radical lesbian students, to a simple GameStop employee. But I don’t think their voices truly mattered to the narrative of the story, and it seems like they were more of an addition to showcase the general atmosphere at the time than being stand alone characters, but they were still treated as characters, which felt dishonest.
The main character, Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty, portrayed by Paul Dano), does invoke some empathy from the viewers (mostly thanks to Paul Dano’s performance), but even that feels slightly forced and through the use of agents: his daughter, his wife, his late sister, and his brother. Do we really care about him, or do we care about his fortune since so many others depend on it?
And a major issue this film has, in my opinion is that for a film that tells a real life story about a financial matter, you’d think they’ll explain the definition of the most important idea to the story – what is a short position. Do they assume you’ve watched The Big Short and remember what it is? Do they assume you’ve read about it as the events have transpired back in 2021? I do honestly believe it would have taken about 2 minutes to explain what it is, and it will help the viewers to better understand why what happened with GameStop is such a big deal.
A friend told me once that I got it all wrong – film is my career, and finances is my hobby. I am, like a lot of the supporting characters in the movie, what the Capital Hedge Funds like to call “dumb money” – private individuals investing in the stock market without a lot of background, making it easier for them to make more money using their power and advanced technological tools.
That’s why I’m somewhat not too objective about this film – I love the subject matter, and I enjoyed watching it. Even though it was nothing special, I truly believe that even if you’re not interested in finances, you have to understand it to some extent since it does affect all of our lives. As this story probably could have been told the same (or even better) as a documentary – it wouldn’t reach a fraction of the audience Dumb Money will reach, and won’t have as much of an impact. So, maybe a generic hollywood film is just what this story needed – something that’s easy and fun to watch and gets millions of views, so that maybe people get more aware and involved, and maybe even help re-democratize the stock market.
Nevertheless, I find it odd that a film produced by Columbia Pictures (owned by Sony Pictures) takes an “eat the rich” stance. Can they honestly represent the lower middle class uprise against rich Wall-Street giants, when they have a leg in the game?
The review was written by Illy Levi, in collaboration with Itamar David Leshman.
