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Dumb Money Delights in a Stupid True Story


As it was happening just under two years ago I predicted the GameStop squeeze would be turned into a movie. And I know that wasn’t a unique observation -the sheer strangeness of it and how it exposed the idiocy of Wall Street had a real Wolf of Wall Street vibe even as it was playing out in real time. I’m only surprised how quickly it took. Dumb Money is the official dramatization of those events, directed by Craig Gillespie with that trademark sardonic tone of his I, Tonya and Pam & Tommy as it revels in the story of online nobodies gaming the system and taking down hedge funds.  And there’s a fair bit of cathartic fun in that, even as the movie streamlines and sanitizes its narrative quite a bit.
I mean this is a movie that prominently features Reddit as a plot device, and as a force of some good -which in itself is a concept jarring to think about. So of course for the sake of good taste it has to be scrubbed of much of the toxicity of that platform. Likewise, streamer culture in general has to be modified to be palatable to general audiences -the film may include casual uses of the ‘r-word’ in memes and on forums, but makes sure to have none of the protagonists use it aloud; it addresses hateful conduct on the thread in a few brief scenes, but downplays it when it is eventually used  as the excuse to bring down the forum. Yes, it is clear overreach by panicking billionaires done for the wrong reasons, but simply saying “it’s always been like that” is not justification.
These are the sort of things that do come up when making movies directly tied to modern internet phenomenons, and perhaps part of why it happens so rarely. It’s hard to paint in a conventional positive light a movement represented by troll avatars and the same gifs right-wing accounts have been using for more than a decade. Within the restraints and awkwardness of that however a good movie is visible, the script by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo being often times quite sharp and compelling. It’s not an Adam McKay movie that talks down to its audience the minutiae of its financial details, but it’s still fairly easy to grasp, especially with the sense of humour attached. It was a smart choice too to divide up the plot amongst some of the various people who invested in GameStop at the height of this squeeze and came out of it fairly wealthy. These include an overworked nurse (America Ferrera), a college couple (Talia Ryder and Myha’la), and a disenchanted GameStop employee (Anthony Ramos).
At the centre of it all though is Paul Dano as Keith Gill, a struggling financial analyst in Brockton, Massachusetts, who goes by the online moniker “Raging Kitty”. He’s the guy who discovers the short selling stock in the company, driven by hedge funds, and leads the charge to exploit it -the leader and hero of the movement. And in this role, I don’t know that Dano is particularly well-cast. There’s something very feigned to the social awkwardness he expresses here –the choice to play Keith as strangely uncharismatic on camera in general doesn’t quite work for a guy who’s apparently been an online streamer for years. It feels again like the movie manufacturing endearing qualities for a character that don’t translate authentically. Dano also doesn’t really fit in with the movie’s sense of humour –not that he can’t, but his performance choices aren’t really calibrated to it.
Pete Davidson, playing Keith’s underachieving brother, fits the tone better –and is more the kind of person I’d expect in that role. Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman as the hedge fund titans brought down by the squeeze, understand the assignment as well –as does a squirrelly Sebastian Stan as the founder of the app the bulk of these transactions take place on. Gillespie realizes the movie is at its best when emphasizing both the absurdity of the whole affair and the panic of the multi-millionaires caught with their pants down. Unsurprisingly, it’s incredibly satisfying to see mega-rich tycoons lose their wealth to a diverse collection of underdogs, and Gillespie plays it all with an ample amount of glee.
The choice of structure also proves greatly beneficial in lending the movie some modestly engaging tension -particularly around Keith’s reluctance to cash out, determined in his belief the stock will continue to grow, and the faith his followers have in him -several waiting for his go-ahead. Focusing intermittently on all these different characters around the country gives a good sense of the practical, tangible weight of this windfall -each character showcased dealing with their own financial troubles. At the same time, there are the businessmen closing in, with desperate machinations to shut the whole thing down. It’s never exactly suspenseful, but it effectively keeps the stakes up. And it goes a ways to highlighting the class conflict that is at the centre of the movie -in small ways at first, such as the visual contrast of Keith’s suburban basement with the exquisite beach-front property of Rogen’s Gabe Plotkin; but eventually it’s emphasized more openly -Plotkin being coached on where to shoot himself and how to carry himself on camera for the congressional hearing, encouraged not to name-drop his Ivy League school and to fudge the details of his father’s career. It’s all done cheekily in a safe Hollywood way, but I was still surprised how much the film framed itself as a story of working-class triumph.
Again, there is an air of disingenuousness to this, and what feels like a tempering of personalities for the sake of a palatable Hollywood comedy. The movie is based on a book by the guy who also wrote the book that inspired The Social Network -yet Gillespie doesn’t seem nearly as direct and honest as David Fincher. But through all of the laboured conventions and the slyly manipulative streaks, the movie is still fairly enjoyable -if for nothing else than the fun that it has with this incredibly stupid and in some small way inspiring true story. Perhaps it’s just purely circumstantial, but I think some of the choices with how this narrative was translated do work for dramatic and structural reasons, if not necessarily fidelity to the truth. In all of it, the flaws and the morals, the charms and the artifices alike, Dumb Money is exactly the movie this story deserved.

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