TORONTO – About three years ago, an underdog YouTube and Reddit personality recruited an army of retail investors that sent investment powerbrokers scrambling and changed how Wall Street viewed social media. It’s an inherently funny story because it seemed preposterous at the time (at least to the financial community), but it also occurred during a pivotal moment in global history. That snapshot of increasing class disparity during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic is chronicled in Craig Gillespie’s “Dumb Money,” which debuted this weekend at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
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Known by his handle Roaring Kitty, Keith Gill (Paul Dano, fantastic as always) was at the center of a movement to invest in GameStop, a retail chain specializing in renting and selling video games and a company whose best days were arguably behind them. Using consumer-friendly stock market buying apps such as Robinhood, retail investors pushed the stock price to massive highs and, eventually, inflicted billions of losses for investment funds who had bet on the stock’s failure (known as “shorting” the stock). And it all began with Gill, who was championing the stock in front of cheesy graphics all from a computer set up in his Brockton, Massachusetts basement.
Adapted from Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book “The Antisocial Network” by screenwriters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, the film only introduces Gill until after the sh*t has hit the fan. Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen, on point) is on the verge of panicking after his company, Melvin Capital Management, begins losing millions after betting on GameStop’s demise. He juggles phone calls from billionaire investor Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio, having a blast) and notorious Citadel Securities founder Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman, perfect) as the mainstream business media starts to pick up on this unexpected event. Things are getting out of control.
Flashback to almost six months earlier, and Roaring Kitty, er, Gill, has posted that he’s invested a substantial chunk of money in GameSpot. And every day, after the market closes, he shares his success in the WallStreetBets subreddit (an individual community on Reddit). Gill starts to get people’s attention after he justifies his buy and sticks by it. Plus, like most of his viewers, he’s just an everyday person. Why shouldn’t they trust him with a $5-10 investment? These small, individual investors actually all add up to the “Dumb Money” in the film’s title. And a disparaging term from the Wall Street insiders (what would you expect?).
Blum and Angelo pepper the story with distinct examples of the “dumb money” who followed Gill. Jenny (America Ferreira, superb) is a nurse on the COVID front lines, raiding two kids independently. Detroit native Marcos (Anthony Ramos, still a star) is a loyal GameSpot employee working for a clueless manager (Dane DeHaan, hiding beneath a mask) who doesn’t realize how terrible corporate’s ideas are to save the company. Harmony (Talia Ryder) and RiRi (Myha’la) are two Austin undergrads already stressed over the $130,00+ they both owe in student loans. When the GameStop stock price rises, the values of everyone’s shares skyrocket. And throughout this phenomenon, they constantly hedge whether they should cash in their earnings or stick with it with the rest of the retail investors (punctuated by many of them with the phrase “diamond hands”).
When the stock hits an $88 closing price (it was under $5 before the rally), strange things begin to happen. The WallStreetBets community shuts down for over 24 hours, and the Robinhood app disables the buy option on the GameSpot stock. The latter is run by clueless start-up entrepreneurs Baiju Bhatt (Rushi Kota) and Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan, absolutely nailing tech bro), whose business model cannot handle any massive customer sell-off. The “dumb money” blames the billionaires, and before you know it, the government gets involved, and everyone gets subpoenaed to testify at a Congressional hearing.
Through all the ups and downs, Gill has remained diligent that he won’t sell. At one point, he’s worth over $48 million and refused to sell a share. Complicating Gill’s plans are his annoying younger brother (Pete Davidson, shockingly appropriate), who barely survives as a DoorDash driver, and two parents (Clancy Brown, Kate Burton), who are years away from retirement but shouldn’t be. A voice of reason, and sadly one of the more underwritten characters in the film, is Keith’s wife, Caroline (Shailene Woodley, doing her best).
“Dumb Money” is part of a 21st-century genre of income inequality films. You can feel the influence and parallels of movies such as “The Big Short,” “The Social Network,” “Margin Call,” “Parasite,” and even “Blackberry,” which was released earlier this year. Somehow, Gillespie manages not only to make it feel fresh but its own distinct chapter in this never-ending story. He does that partially by using meme culture as a visual motif (no one has adopted it better) and found footage to chronicle certain events. It’s not a new technique, but it feels more organic than anything the more celebrated Adam McKay has tried to insert into his recent work.
The surprise in “Dumb Money” isn’t Gillespie’s aforementioned aesthetic choices. We know from “I, Tonya,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” and even “Cruella” that he has a genuine cinematic eye. His movies will always be visually intriguing, regardless of the subject. The surprise is how this tale, for the life of it, cannot escape the melancholy of the pandemic. The tragedy of COVID is something that many people have wanted to forget instantly, but it really was only a few years ago. And because this movie cannot break away from it, the emotions and the memories of what seems like a different world flood your brain. Ultimately, it makes the context of the individual investors following Gill almost tragic. These are people looking for hope and dreaming of an escape. Willing to follow someone, anyone, to bring them to a better place. Gill and his legion made the one percent take notice, but did it bring them any closer to economic empowerment? Gillespie and his screenwriters leave that for you to decide. [B+]
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