It's 34 hours at a major Wall Street trading firm that realizes the securities it trades in are worthless and decides to get out, destroying the market and the firm in the process. Judging by some clues, it appears to combine aspects of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs and concerns the market meltdown in 2008.
Although the point of view shifts around, a major portion of it is told from the viewpoint of Kevin Spacey, head of trading of the firm.... a quarter of a century after he appeared in Glengarry Glenross. Here, he's dealing with a dying dog, and this reminds me of what a friend told me when he interviewed with Goldman Sachs. The man conducting the interview told him "If you want a friend, get a dog. This place is about money."
The thesis of the movie is that they were dealing in securities they didn't understand, devised by rocket scientists -- actually rocket science involves much simpler maths than the quants of Wall Street work with. To a firm run by salesmen, this was an opportunity, the same old stuff covered by the fig leaf of science, and the fact that they didn't understand what they were dealing in led to the destruction. The head of the firm, played by Jeremy Irons, ascribes the destruction that the financial world has wreaked repeatedly on the globe, to winners balancing losers, and that's just the way people are. True enough, some people are like that, and since they're interested in money, rather than something useful, that's what they get and lose. If you're a physicist, you get rockets to the moon and atomic bombs. If you're a good salesman, you sell; a great salesman worries about his clients being satisfied, but a good salesman worries about the sale he's making, and makes a lot more sales for a while; and that's what the financial firms went with and put in charge.
None of these ramblings get at the core of the movie as a movie, written and directed by J. C. Chandor, and performed by some fine actors, including Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore. It's a dry, cold, pessimistic movie, and my understanding of how the financial industry operates informs my appreciation of it. I liked it a lot, while seeing things to argue about. Whether you like it or not would depend on how much you understand about these things, how badly you got hurt in 2008, and your politics.
Although the point of view shifts around, a major portion of it is told from the viewpoint of Kevin Spacey, head of trading of the firm.... a quarter of a century after he appeared in Glengarry Glenross. Here, he's dealing with a dying dog, and this reminds me of what a friend told me when he interviewed with Goldman Sachs. The man conducting the interview told him "If you want a friend, get a dog. This place is about money."
The thesis of the movie is that they were dealing in securities they didn't understand, devised by rocket scientists -- actually rocket science involves much simpler maths than the quants of Wall Street work with. To a firm run by salesmen, this was an opportunity, the same old stuff covered by the fig leaf of science, and the fact that they didn't understand what they were dealing in led to the destruction. The head of the firm, played by Jeremy Irons, ascribes the destruction that the financial world has wreaked repeatedly on the globe, to winners balancing losers, and that's just the way people are. True enough, some people are like that, and since they're interested in money, rather than something useful, that's what they get and lose. If you're a physicist, you get rockets to the moon and atomic bombs. If you're a good salesman, you sell; a great salesman worries about his clients being satisfied, but a good salesman worries about the sale he's making, and makes a lot more sales for a while; and that's what the financial firms went with and put in charge.
None of these ramblings get at the core of the movie as a movie, written and directed by J. C. Chandor, and performed by some fine actors, including Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore. It's a dry, cold, pessimistic movie, and my understanding of how the financial industry operates informs my appreciation of it. I liked it a lot, while seeing things to argue about. Whether you like it or not would depend on how much you understand about these things, how badly you got hurt in 2008, and your politics.