Dumb Money
Craig Gillespie, USA, 2023o
Vlogger Keith Gill sinks his life savings into GameStop stock and posts about it. When social media starts blowing up, so do his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets rich—until the billionaires fight back, and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.
What a nerd! Keith Gill sits in the basement at his computer wearing a red headband or baseball cap and the ugliest cat T-shirts imaginable while he gives his online community investment tips. His latest: You should buy shares in the declining video game store chain Gamestop, Wall Street simply hasn't recognized the company's potential. Hundreds of thousands of small investors follow the advice, while the managers of large hedge funds, who only have a weary smile for this clown, bet enormous sums against the predicted bull market. The rest is (true) history: the value of Gamestop shares increased a hundredfold in January 2021, making some small investors filthy rich, while the hedge funds made huge losses. Packing the complex mechanisms and strategies of high finance into an entertaining and fun movie is probably one of the most difficult tasks a filmmaker can set for himself. But director Craig Gillespie succeeds in doing this well for long stretches, not least thanks to a wonderful Paul Dano, who seems to have the role of Keith Gill and his baby face written all over him. And although the movie isn't brimming with subtlety - a Wall Street financial shark keeps a fat pig as a pet, for example - it's a joy to see the underdogs triumph over the powerful and arrogant.
Till Brockmann