‘Dumb Money’ Movie: GameStop Stock Movie Is a Winner – IndieWire
Directly a rowdy comedy and a weirdly affecting story of working class solidarity, “Dumb Cash” is probably the very best interval piece ever made a couple of interval that simply occurred. The film, directed by Craig Gillespie in full-on comedy mode, takes us all the way in which again to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a solid of particular person traders took on Wall Road with nothing however a couple of {dollars} and an unwavering sense of workforce spirit.
It feels nearly foolish to recount the broad strokes of the narrative, given how not too long ago all of us lived by means of it. The time was 2020. The inventory was GameStop. The hero was a cat individual live-streaming out of his basement. It’s tough to think about a viewer going into this story completely blind. However not like many ripped-from-the-headlines films, “Dumb Cash,” which performs like “The Large Brief” for underdogs, has no bother justifying its existence, even when stylistic decisions typically short-change the complexity of its supply materials.
Associated Tales
Close to the start of the film, we’re positioned in time by a track: “WAP,” the rollicking Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion duet that got here out in the summertime of 2020. The hit performs over a dynamic montage of our heroes: an array of important staff, middle-class workers, and faculty college students in debt up their eyeballs. These are the peculiar of us who anchor “Dumb Cash,” at the same time as Keith Gill (Paul Dano) — a small-town Massachusetts resident who presents monetary insights on Reddit below the moniker Roaring Kitty — claims the story’s middle.
Gillespie paints Keith as a canny and resourceful investor with a clearly spectacular breadth of monetary data. However the movie is cautious to indicate that Keith’s true expertise just isn’t as an funding adviser however slightly as a form of nerdfluencer. Whereas live-streaming, he typically contains small, private moments — he wears wonky outfits and, at one level, nibbles on the hen nuggets he’s feeding his son — that catch on and shortly turn out to be a part of his on-line model.
Within the position, Dano toggles pleasingly between geeky nervousness and a sheepish enjoyment of the highlight. He typically shares scenes with Pete Davidson, who performs Keith’s layabout brother, Kevin, and although Dano’s naturally earnest sensibility hits up a bit awkwardly in opposition to Davidson’s endless farce, the pair finally hit a rhythm. Rounding out their household crew is Keith’s spouse Caroline (Shailene Woodley), who’s sadly given little to do except for doling out encouraging remarks throughout moments of stress.
However essentially the most spectacular feat on this vigorous film doesn’t must do with Keith in any respect, however slightly its formidable band of aspect characters. Every member of this ensemble is absolutely drawn and completely interesting. A lot of the credit score goes to the movie’s stellar solid: America Ferrera and Larry Owens mesh entertainingly as workers at a hospital; Anthony Ramos performs a knowledgable GameStop worker; and I’d watch a complete spinoff season that includes Myha’la Herrold and Talia Ryder as a winsome couple attending the College of Texas at Austin, the place they spend their days lounging within the dorm or sharing movies on TikTok.
Talking of TikTok: on a number of events, the film succumbs to the annoying cliche of filling its display screen with social media clips — lots of them movies of individuals reacting as their investments see positive aspects or urging others to not promote even because the inventory climbs in worth. Overlapping and drowning one another out, the ocean of movies is an affordable shorthand for virality, they usually really feel much more pointless right here than the deluge of archival information clips Gillespie periodically intersperses with the motion.
There are additionally scenes that includes the Goliath to the traders’ David — Melvin Capital founder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), Citadel CEO Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), and the Robinhood co-founders (Sebastian Stan and Rushi Kota) are our chief villains — and their gentle fretting over the specter of a brief squeeze rounds out this financial world whereas including little taste. Rogen and Offerman particularly are left wanting considerably cramped, as if uncertain whether or not to completely lean into a comic book rendering of the roles.
However although these monetary fats cats go away a restricted impression, the iconography of wealth surrounding them is hanging. Whereas the varied GameStop traders are sometimes proven weary and embattled however surrounded by family members, the monetary executives are nearly all the time depicted on their very own save for small armies of workers who hover round them in masks, nameless to their bosses aside from the labor they supply. This energetic, pleasant film doesn’t got down to break floor, however in placing centerstage those that are usually left on the sidelines, the film emerges as a rousing success.
Grade: B+
“Dumb Cash” premiered on the 2023 Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition. A Sony Photos launch, it opens in choose theaters on Friday, September 15 earlier than increasing nationally on September 29.
Adblock take a look at (Why?)
