Dumb Money opens with panic. Hedge fund manager Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) is being bombarded with calls from fellow investors about the rise of a specific stock: GameStop. The editing is quick and fun, the performances entertaining, and then… the screen turns black. The dreaded words “Six Months Earlier” fill the screen. Oh dear.

The film tells the story of Keith Gill (Paul Dano) and his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley, given zero material to work with), a middle-class couple living with a brand new baby in Massachusetts. Gill is a securities broker but runs a finance-based YouTube channel in his spare time. Keith publishes his purchase of GameStop stock on Reddit, and other small-time investors follow suit. Soon, hundreds of thousands of people bought shares, raising the stock to record highs. Meanwhile, Wall Street hedge funds had shorted GameStop, meaning they had bet against its success. Dumb Money becomes a tale of financial warfare, with ordinary people pitted against enormous financial conglomerates.

‘The Big Short’ Imitation

If the concept of shorting sounds familiar, you’ve likely seen the Adam McKay-helmed The Big Short, which chronicles investors who bet against the housing market and won big during the 2008 financial crisis. The difference is that the protagonists in The Big Short are already ingrained in Wall Street. Dumb Money focuses on the investors who can’t afford to visit New York, let alone work on Wall Street. Despite this difference, it’s quite easy to compare the two films, especially in style.

Director Craig Gillespie seemingly emulates the fast-paced editing style of The Big Short at various points throughout the film. However, this style never remains for more than a couple of minutes at a time. This means that when it slows down, the audience can feel it. Dumb Money alternates between humorous and emotional moments, often back to back. The shifts are jarring, ultimately weakening the serious themes the film is trying to convey. It also utilizes news clips and conversations between talking heads to an obnoxious degree; if I wanted to watch Dave Portnoy and Jim Cramer yelling about stock options, I’d turn on my TV.

One shocking problem with Dumb Money is that it feels outdated despite the events occurring just a couple of years ago. Reddit and TikTok are approached in such a tone-deaf fashion that it feels like someone’s grandmother is explaining them to you. The needle drops of hip-hop tracks throughout certainly don’t help the film’s case. A short sequence features investors singing along to Kendrick Lamar’s HUMBLE, a song released four years before Keith Gill invested a single cent into GameStop.

A Weak Rallying Cry

Dumb Money never fully returns to the frenetic pace that the audience was promised in those first few minutes. It works best when it doesn’t take the characters and concepts seriously. If the film wasn’t based on a true story and the script could run wild, it would be a significantly more entertaining watch. However, writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo are forced into a box. The concept of the little man screwing over big financial firms is compelling, but the truth is not. The film ends with the claim that hedge funds won’t ignore smaller investors again, but that isn’t much of a revolution. Wall Street funds are still immensely powerful; one doesn’t have to dig deep to find that Dumb Money itself was financed by the son of one of the largest investment firms.

The film premieres at a time when the creatives who made this movie are on strike against the companies that employ them. As a consequence, the only “celebrity” at the premiere in Toronto was Gillespie. Dumb Money could’ve been a perfect counterpart to the David vs. Goliath mindset that actors and writers are positing. Alas, it falls short of its goal (pun absolutely intended).

For more reviews from the Toronto International Film Festival, be sure to check back to That Hashtag Show!

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