The Big Short Review
Synopsis (Sorry it is super long, this is partially due to explaining more difficult finance terms): The Big Short is the story of 5 men whose lives intertwine and they all somehow end up on team, “I predicted the Great Recession.”
The movie starts off with Ryan Gosling’s character trader Jared Vennett (who does a lot of the movie’s narrating) explaining what is mortgage backed security is and how it got its start in 1978. But it was not until the mid-2000s that they were widely being used. Then the film focuses to the hedge fund manager Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale) who gives us an introduction into his life. He says that as a child he did not have the best social skills and that things essentially became worse for him when during a football game, his glass eye fell out. And perhaps, it is that solitude which helped him be more contemplative and cerebral later in life. After all, like Cassandra predicted the Fall of Troy, he was able to predict the bust of mortgage backed securities. He noticed that for years they were in decline. When he went to bankers asking for credit default swaps on their mortgage backed assets (credit default swaps by the way are basically insurance against a bond, and if the bond does poorly then the owner of the credit default swap has to get paid) they all thought that he was crazy and readily agreed.
Varrett learns of Burry and is convinced that he is onto something. He wants to bet against the mortgage backed securities via credit default swaps as well. Somehow how accidentally calls the often prone- to- gaffe- Baum (hilariously played by Steve Carrell). He is a man who is loud and ooh so awkward. He enters a support group session really late, interrupts a man who is talking about his personal tragedy, starts talking about his own issue, and leaves the session midway talking loudly on a call he took. It is soon learned through conversations with his wife (played very calmly and compassionately by Marisa Tomei) that his brother jumped off of a building. This has made him more cautious about his actions, his career, and path in life. Perhaps because of this emotional impetus he and Varrett decide to team up to invest in credit default swaps. Along the way he Varrett discovers that another impending doom to the economy is CDO’s (packed up bad loans) that are given good credit ratings by agencies when they are really bad. So when investors buy/invest in CDO’s they are actually investing in something that has a good reputation, but is really bad. Baum attends a forum in Vegas where he learns that there is a man out there who believes so much against the mortgage backed securities and CDO’s, and credit default swaps that bet against them, that he created a tool that deals with investing in packed credit default swaps (known as a synthetic cdo). Baum feels that the whole economy will crash eventually thanks to this…
Young investors Charlie Gellar and Jamie Shipley who have followed some of Varrett’s published writings, and wish to take part on Credit default swaps against mortgage backed securities. But they lack the financial assets to be allowed to have credit default swaps by the organization that regulates credit default swaps. So, they ask help from their former neighbor Ben Rickert (played by Brad Pitt) who helps them out by taking them to a forum in Vegas, where they are able to successfully get credit default swaps. It should be noted that Ben Rickert is rather jaded by the whole banking industry. Ben currently lives in Singapore, but when he did live in Colorado next to Charlie and Jamie he was so jaded with the banking industry and society as a whole that he lives off his own land/garden fertilized by his own.. Urine!
I won’t totally spoil the ending for you but what can be said about all these characters is that they make huge profits for themselves and a few others, but all are disillusioned when they see how when the economy tanked, so many people’s lives were destroyed. Two of them even try to go to newspaper writers to warn the public about the possible collapse. Sadly, this did not happen. Like Cassandra’s pleadings, and beggings as she foretold the doom of troy in the Iliad that go unbelieved, so is the similar fate of these men on Wall street. Tragic.
What the Big Short Does Well
The Big Short does well on giving a fast paced account of a group of key players who knew about the economic meltdown of 2008. The pace of Wall Street is often fast-paced and frenetic (have you ever seen images/video of Wall Street when watching the news?). But couple that with the zany, eccentric personalities who find out about the different facets of bad economic practices on-the-go, which are all really bad puzzle pieces of a bad reality, and you have a chaotic but exhilarating movie!
Narration as the Glue that Holds Emotions Together
The different narration qualities enhance the effect of the movie. Narrators offer an omniscient point of view that helps the audience understand what is going on; and in a movie filled with huge financial terms, quick cut editing, and short shots it helps at times to have a voice that sets the background context and the future. But in this movie, it is does more the narration does more than explain the past and future. . When we the audience see the shambles of the American economy, we are watching in disarray. Not only do we see shambles, but our emotions of shock, anger, and disbelief are scattered. The narrative quality of both Ryan Gosling’s and Christian Bale’s character help make our emotions more cohesive. They help give us words to resonate with, when we are numb at what we are seeing.
Screwball Documentary
The film also does a great job of using images from the real meltdown reality/history- which give a very veracious, semi- documentary like feel to this movie. You definitely feel that what you are seeing is tight to history and real lives. That coupled with the quirky characters portrayed give the movie a screwball documentary effect. A screwmentary anyone? Ok, bad joke..
Masculinity and Emotional Introspection
I wonder what the film says about masculinity and emotional introspection. I say this because with the exception of Vernett’s smug stares and slightly-know it all manner of speaking (not to mention his nice thread), most of the leading male characters all have quirks to them. Burry is self-admittedly not the best at socializing with humans, the two young’un’s Charlie and Jamie is green and still talk about their mothers and garage bands , Ben Rickert eats veggies fertilized by his own pee, and Baum.. Well where does one start with him? He was uptight and crazily detail oriented as a kid ( as scene by a flashback with the Rabbi talking to his mom about certain Godly questions), and blurts more than he talks! Yet Baum cared so much about his brother, and worries about the American people. The young’un’s go to the newspapers to ward off others. I cannot help but wonder if they were portrayed or really were more macho men.. If these same concerns and actions would take place.
Greek Tragedy and Ancient Worlds
The film definitely has Greek tragedy elements to it. Instead of one priestess Cassandra who knew the truth while nobody listened, we had 5 men who took her place. Ryan Gosling’s and Christian Bale’s narrative qualities both served as sort of blind bards narrating the contexts before and after the stories depicted. It’s not a Greek tragedy in the most conventional sense, but instead of the Fall of Troy it was the fall of The American Middle Class. It’s funny, just before I watched this movie I saw Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story twice. In it the film starts with a reenacted documentary of Ancient Rome while a narrator discusses the flaws and problems with Ancient Rome that lead to its downfall. But as the narration continues the scenes go back and forth between ancient Rome and modern America at the time of and before the great recession- which many say is the beginning of the fall of the American Middle Class. Hmm.. all these ironies..
The one area the film could have been a bit better
I am sure that people are going to hate me for this, but the area of the film which could have been better is that of explaining the financial terms better. NOW, the film does attempt to this and humorously at that. It cuts during the story to bring up outside guest stars to explain different the complex murky terms of CDO’s, Credit Default Swaps, etc. Early on they have Margot Robbie in a tub drinking champagne explain one concept, then they have Anthony Bourdain, and then finally a professor and Selena Gomez.
But even I got confused as to what was what in the move- and I took an economic sociology class! I admit that before I wrote this review, I had some brushing up to do.
I admit that though I am slightly criticizing the movie, I don’t know of a better way for filmmakers to explain such complex financial systems. And this movie, did make a great effort. I would just give the film a B in terms of clarification efforts.
But as a whole this film is better than that and gets an A-. Go see it.
4.25 out of 5 stars
