For those caught up with financial news, the story of the GameStop takeover by a group of everyday traders—led by an influential YouTuber/dad that took on Wall Street and won—only happened in 2021. However, as the story unfolds like a gripping drama or Soap Opera, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling. Craig Gillespie, who directed the true story “I, Tonya” has tackled the subject that seemed almost too good to be true with his new biography/comedy/drama “Dumb Money.”
The film centers around January 2021, where users on the social media forum Reddit suddenly began buying large numbers of stock in a chain of game stores in America called GameStop—which was slowly failing. The main aim of buying the stocks was to trigger a short squeeze, since hedge fund company Melvin Capital and its founder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) had engaged in ‘short selling,’ which basically meant if GameStop’s shares fell, Plotkin makes a profit.
A YouTuber vs. Wall Street
However, as shares went up it drove Melvin Capital to the point of bankruptcy. The main person driving the shares upward movement is Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a YouTuber known as ‘Roaring Kitty.’ He had already invested $53,000 dollars into the company and was leading people to the same. They believed Gill had to stay and his followers would not rest until he had. At the height of the squeeze, Gill was worth $48 million in shares; he was still not selling as he believed in the company and thought everyone else was wrong.
“Dumb Money” is the first of its kind, as the events are recent and still feature the Covid pandemic. It was developed, written, shot, and released all in a two-year turn-a-round. The cast are all perfect in their roles, but the ensemble is lead by Paul Dano, who is a versatile actor and can both play dark roles and everymen, like he does in this film. His normality comes across on-screen, along with his naivety of a man raising an almost cult-like following that will shadow his every move and hold with him—even if they have hundreds of thousands of money in shares.
A Riveting Story that Takes Audiences on a Ride
Additionally, a lot of the comedy in the film comes from Keith’s brother, Kevin (Pete Davidson), a deadbeat delivery driver working through the pandemic. He classes himself as a key worker and spends most of his time online, trolling his brother, as he doesn’t think there’s a future in this world. Also, other characters include two college girls who have racked up a lot of debt, a frazzled nurse wanting to try her luck in shares, and a guy working at GameStop. There are a lot of characters to root for and it allows for the audience to see themselves in any of these people.
As the film’s content is so recent, it was a race to see which production company would win the rights to an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s book “The Antisocial Network,” which is now known as “Dumb Money.” It’s a riveting story which takes the audience on a ride. However, it also makes light of the story, making it tolerable for people that have no interest in the financial world but want to see this ‘too crazy to be true’ story. All-in-all, a solid effort.
“Dumb Money” is releases in cinemas on September 29th.
