DUMB MONEY : Tuesday 7th November 2023

I finally got around to seeing the MA15+ Rated 'DUMB MONEY' after my three week sojourn in the UK. This American biographical comedy drama film, which was released here in Australia on 5th October, is Directed by Craig Gillespie whose prior feature film making credits take in his debut with 'Mr. Woodcock' in 2007 and 'Lars and the Real Girl' also in 2007 and then 'Fright Night' in 2011, 'Million Dollar Arm' in 2014, 'The Finest Hours' in 2016, 'I, Tonya' in 2017 and 'Cruella' in 2021. This film is based on the 2021 book 'The Antisocial Network' by Ben Mezrich, and saw its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September and was released in the US in limited theatres a week later before expanding into a wider release on 29th September. The film garnered generally favourable reviews and has so far grossed US$17.5M against a production budget of US$30M.

Keith Gill (Paul Dano) is a lower middle class man working as a financial analyst for MassMutual in Brockton, Massachusetts. During his spare time, he maintains a watchful eye on the stock market subreddit r/WallStreetBets, and posts his opinions on it via YouTube live streams under the name Roaring Kitty, with the disclaimer that he is not offering financial advice. He struggles to provide for his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and his young child, and has a net worth of about US$98K. His presence on his home based YouTube channel is constantly being mocked by his brother Kevin (Pete Davidson) as nerdy rubbish. 

In June 2020, following the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Keith notices that video game retailer GameStop's stock is falling and sinks more than half of his life savings (US$53K) into buying stock in it, frequently live streaming updates with his followers. 

Despite Kevin, and Keith's colleague Briggsy (Deniz Akdeniz) claiming this is a waste of time and money, by January 2021, activity on r/WallStreetBets reveals that several hedge fund investment firms, including Melvin Capital Management and its founder Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), have been short selling stock in the chain on the assumption it would close, causing a mass increase in GameStop's overall stock price when online retail mum and dad stock buyers, including struggling nurse Jennifer Campbell (America Ferrera), GameStop retail employee Marcos (Anthony Ramos), and lesbian college couple Riri (Myha'la Herrold) and Harmony (Talia Ryder), start aggressively buying up stock, causing Plotkin and other investment CEO's to lose hundreds of millions of dollars within the same timeframe, and Keith to be heralded as a financial sensation.

Things take a turn for the worse when r/WallStreetBets is temporarily shut down for 'inflammatory and vulgar content' (even though that had been the way for years), causing a mass surge of panic selling in GameStop's stock in an attempt to beat a perceived price drop. When the commission-free stock trading website Robinhood is unable to adequately pay the US$3B for the sales, co-chairman Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan), at the behest of Citadel owner and multi-billionaire Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), places a freeze on all purchasing of GameStop's stock in an attempt to drive down the price. 

The play ultimately works, but the subsequent negative backlash results in an investigation by the United States House Committee on Financial Services, with Tenev, Griffin, Plotkin, and Keith all being subpoenaed, the former three for their roles in the fiasco and the latter on suspicion of using the situation to trick the public into making himself rich. As the investors struggle to defend their actions, Keith adamantly denies any wrongdoing in the hearing on 18th February 2021, saying 'I did not solicit anyone to buy or sell the stock for my own profit' and further stating that he was only doing what anyone with a passing awareness of investment banking would do in that situation, while concluding that 'I like the stock', by which time his initial investment of US$53K had turned into a personal fortune of US$48M all largely off the back of GameStop. 

In the months that followed, pre-credits text shows how several of the individuals were impacted, namely Plotkin was forced to shut down Melvin Capital because of the net losses the incident caused; Robinhood was the target of several lawsuits following the fiasco and wound up with its IPO starting in the stock market significantly lower than it was prior; Harmony was able to use the money she obtained to pay off her family's debt issues and continues her relationship with Riri; Marcos sold half of his GameStop stock and quit his position in the company; Jennifer remains marginally in debt but has retained her shareholding; Keith retired from YouTube in late April to get out of the public eye and sold a small portion of his now US$33M fortune to buy Kevin a brand new red Porsche 911 as a way to stop his nagging about how he will not loan him his car for his food deliveries work. Kevin still calls him a nerd however.

'Dumb Money' is a compelling story mainly because it fell in such recent times that just about all of us with the remotest interest in the stock market will remember the events that unfolded around GameStop and the events that came to pass as part of the zeitgeist of the pandemic era. The acting is on point here with particular nods to Dano and Davidson, and this cautionary tale is dramatic, humorous and entertaining and you can't help but be carried along by the stories of the little people beating the mega rich of Wall Street at their own game. The term 'dumb money' BTW was coined by Wall Street for retail mum & dad investors, whereas 'smart money' is used to describe institutional, or professional, investors. The film also stars Vincent D'Onofrio, Clancy Brown, Dane DeHaan and Olivia Thirlby. 

'Dumb Money' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-