Film Journal 2023: Dumb Money

Film Journal 2023: Dumb Money
Directed by Craig Gillespie

Based on a true story.
Sometimes these words hold more or less weight when it comes to the particular adaptations of these stories. Here the weight is considerable because of the nature of the subject matter.

The story concerns a point of particular corruption, a moment over the course of the pandemic when wall street was called out and where certain members of the 1 percent made some unethical moves to put out the fire and stop the bleeding that was the dismantling of their hedge funds.

But the story reaches much broader then this particular moment in time. It is aiming its sights towards a corrupted system with the hopes of reclaiming the spirit of what the system was always meant to be. According to the filmmaker, the stock market was meant to reflect an even playing field with equal access afforded to anyone with the appropriate skills and desires to use it as a fair opportunity to make money. Just to give this proper defintion: Dumb money is the every person’s investments. This is contrasted with the powerful elites, part of the 1 percent who use their money to control wall street. The action of this smart and somewhat unassuming young man with an interest in stocks eventually turns into a revolution, fighting back against that power and control.

Here in lies the central issue though. And it is not so much with the film itself- this is a tight script featuring some great pacing, quality performances, and an engaging mix of brains, heart, commentary and humor. Its more an issue inherent in the story it is adapting. It’s hard not to see the message of this revolution as muddled and a bit contradictory in nature. It wants to reestablish the stock market in line with the American vision of individual liberty, imagining it as a place that celebrates one of its key tenants- equal opportunity. All hail the capitalist market. And yet its not difficult to see where this fight against class systems simply creates new class systems in its place. It’s written into the fabric of the true story. For every person who becomes rich there are numerous ones who lost everything. Turn your view even a little further outwards and you then have to grapple with with the countless numbers of people whom do not have the tools and ability to navigate stocks occupying the space that is left at the bottom of this capitalist pursuit.

There is no question that the world is shifting and changing, and with it the conception of the dollar, the value of certain kinds of work, and the ways in which one is able to retire (or even the conception of retirement). That in itself shouldn’t be the thing that is resisted necessarily (although there are lots of meaningful points of discussion that can be found there). But within that I think we can find what could be called the same old problems reinventing themselves, arguably with a greater degree of disparity. Dumb money becomes smart money which just shifts what we categorize as dumb towards a different target. If hard work used to define what it meant to make money, that work is being redefined in ways that create an even greater disconnect between human activity and the work of the system itself.

Now, all of this could suggest the merits of this film. That it fosters this kind of discussion is a testament to what it achieves. I for one was deeply engaged with it as a production. It had a similar feel as Blackberry, although with a very different visual aesthetic. In Dumb Money the drama has to be made more visual, as we are talking about stocks after all. The film finds creative ways to tell this story that really help aid the emotional journey.

The film also does have something to say though, and that is anchored in the real world revolution that the film is recounting. My opinion of course, but the reality of the story undercuts its own aims. Worth discussing? No doubt. Part of makes this recommended viewing. But it also is a part of what makes the messaging problematic