by Liam Trump ’24

Taking place during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, director Craig Gillespie’s latest feature, Dumb Money, tells the story of the GameStop short squeeze of 2021. The film goes over the main events of how one man, Keith Gill (Paul Dano), used Reddit to rally the internet to buy stock in GameStop to make a statement against big hedge funds. The premise here is almost inherently absurd even if it is a true story, and Gillespie takes full advantage of that aspect. As a result, Dumb Money is still an entertaining portrayal of a very interesting part of recent history even though the film struggles to maintain a consistent overall tone.

Even while focusing mainly on the character Keith himself, the film boasts an impressive ensemble cast. Other Redditors including Jenny (America Ferrera), Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and Riri (Myha’la) are on Keith’s side. Through these characters, the film takes a look into how an entire community can be formed around seeking opportunity. Opposing them are the hedge fund higher ups, such as Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), and Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onforio). They all give serviceable performances, but the main highlight of the film is the relationship Keith has with his brother Kevin (Pete Davidson). Their characters bounce off each other naturally and whenever the two of them are on screen, it usually makes for an enjoyable scene.

The overall pace of the film is concise, with very few scenes going on for too long. As there is such a large cast, the film can jump around to different characters before any individual storyline becomes too stale. But a major caveat of framing the story in such a way is that there isn’t much screen time to give any one side characters much depth.

The biggest issue, however, is that the main story comes across as almost too simplistic for its own good. As the stock market is given a lot of focus, it would be expected that much of the inner workings would be explored in depth. Instead, the throughline of the movie is a simple ‘good vs bad’ conflict between the good redditors and the evil higher ups at the hedge funds. Having a more exaggerated outlook on the conflict wouldn’t really be much of a problem, but the film never commits either way. This leaves some of the more emotional and sentimental beats coming across as hollow and unearned.

Dumb Money mainly suffers from the fact that it has to balance showcasing the harsh truth of how the economy has been rigged against the little guy, and an absurdist comedy aiming for laughs. While it is certainly entertaining, Dumb Money seems to lose sight of the nuances that come with the subject matter it’s portraying.

Grade: C+