The Big Short (Adam McKay)

[TGM]

THE BIG SHORT

Director: Adam McKay

imdb

[Henry Gale]

I mean.. the lack of discussion here kinda mirrors and sums up the impression it's left on me, as much as I really liked it in the moment.

It's a lot of fun while it goes, which is odd to say considering the subject matter and the impending doom of it, but the style McKay invents here is compulsively interesting with constant curve balls and unique media-blender flourishes. It's like those bits of Wolf of Wall Street where Scorsese used ads and TV bits of the time the illustrate the era, except McKay uses that as a constant to the narrative, with random flashes of culture etched in like graffiti on a more run-of-the-mill version of it, acting as a strangely comforting carpeting for the whole thing, and I found it very aesthetically effective, even if its intention seems to be to present cultural superficialness and inconsequential-ness by bombarding you with it as distractions from issues as big as the central banking one here, the same way the world did/does.

The performances are uniformly fine, with Gosling as the comedic standout and Bale as the dramatic one for me. Carell falls nicely in the middle, but to me his dramatic arc and backstory was leaned on a little too heavily without much revelation or resonance to justify the markedly more dour tone it shifted towards when it focused on him. I'm not sure if it's a funny movie that involves a serious subject or a serious movie that involves funny people, and I was okay not having to make that distinction for the first three quarters of it, but then it doesn't seem to use the comedy as a shield anymore, and ends up feeling like a fairly inert drama.

I definitely don't see the film that anyone in certain critics or awards circle did to feel this was amongst the best of 2015, but it's a very efficient, entertainingly offbeat piece of work that at the very least does a lot to simplify, clarify and communicate a very complicated issue and make it cinematically compelling (which, say, Margin Call did not do the former to me). The Phantom of the Opera theme scoring Las Vegas establishing shots (with the random acappella bit of Killer Mike from "Blockbuster Night Part 1" suddenly impeding on it) might end up being the thing that stays with me most out of it.

*** / 7.4

[number8]

I only have two thoughts about it. Other than this, there's not much to say:

1. Beat-wise, I found it oddly similar to Spotlight in every way. It's the same kind of snowball narrative about an investigation that goes on for a long period of time, with paper trail discoveries acting as the plot bombs, that ends with a small victory and a harrowing activistic postscript. With one key difference: Spotlight's end text focuses solely on the crimes, with no fanfare on where the characters are today. Big Short, meanwhile, celebrates its players.

2. Months ago, I heard a female critic mention that the movie seemed to be aiming for a narrow audience that alienated her, and when I was watching the movie, at first I thought she was just referring to a lack of entry point because the characters are all such typical bros. But then it became more obvious what she was referring to. The movie breaks the fourth wall a bunch of times, and the insular nature of the characters seem to extend to it, as in it's apparent that when it talks to "the audience," it assumes that the audience are just straight white bros. They announce this pretty loud and clear early on when Gosling goes, "Oh, finance is boring, right? Well, here's a naked Margot Robbie talking about it. Now you're paying attention, right?" It's also the exact same principle when they bring in Anthony Bourdain, really. I found it all amusing but also really weird, because those choices seem like an appropriate extension of the film's douchey environment, so as world-building it works, but the film also positions itself as educational entertainment, so it's kinda bizarre to then deliberately limit itself. A lot--a lot--of the elements in the movie seem like it could've been written completely in jest by misandrist humor blogs (the Bourdain cameo especially).

[ledfloyd]

I really just thought this film lacked confidence in the material. The constant zipping around and cutting and interstitials with random pop-culture ephemera conveyed to me a sense that McKay thought if he focused on the story it would bore viewers, which I don't think is true. The form seemed more concerned with keeping the audience's attention than aiding in telling the story.

I also thought it took awhile to get going, the way it tried to shoehorn in backstory for Bale and Carrell's character felt awkward.

[dreamdead]

The Carrell brother material either needed far more coverage or needed dropped altogether. It didn't have enough of an anchor to work emotionally, and McKay kept backing off doing more with it when it seemed likely to be the impetus of Carrell's responses.

That this won the producer's award is interesting. It hasn't really stuck with me two weeks after seeing it alongside Spotlight and Room, and beyond the vitriol leveled against an opportunistic Wall Street (which makes Hollywood look like the good guy here exposing the flaws of another profit mass machine), there's not much here because the characters never really adapt or shift.

This is very much a film where people remain static in their positions, and that feels like a narrative downfall. I'm not asking for melodramatic close-ups of people "getting it," but something in the dramatic arc needed shifted to make this story more than the static expose it is.

[Mal]

The Big Nothing.
Nothing about this did shit for me as a viewer. It kept moving but it felt so flat, just "there."

[amberlita]

The more I think about this movie the more pissed off I get at it. It's manipulative and dishonest, and I refuse to buy into its narrative that these bloodsucking hedge fund managers are some sort of capitalist heroes. It gives the impression that just these few guys knew the bubble was going to pop. They weren't the only ones who saw it coming; they are just the ones who saw an opportunity to get rich off the fact that everyone else was about to become poor. But apparently we are supposed to be OK with it because Christian Bale is on the spectrum and thus is sympathetic and because Steve Carrell is perpetually pissed at the world. It's OK because this is some form of comeuppance. It's OK because they feel reeeeeeallll baaaaaad about HOW they are getting rich, right? Bullshit. They didn't feel bad. They are a part of the same Wall Street tradition of gambling with other people's money and patting themselves on the back for their ingenuity (as if the credit default swap is anything to applaud). This movie only encourages audiences to cheer for these leeches because we get to live vicariously through their rapid wealth, which is precisely why people on Wall Street are as morally corrupt as they are in the first place. Fuck those guys.

[ledfloyd]

I don't think any of them realized the entire financial system would come crashing down because of these bets.

But I agree with you, it's a shit movie.

[Dead & Messed Up]

The enthusiastic heist-like story worked for me as a means to explain what happened in 2008. As a story of personalities, it was eh. I liked Christian Bale's peculiarities but found Carell and Gosling half-baked. I don't know if we're supposed to be "on their side" by film's end, since the film makes a point of moralizing (via Pitt, reprising his classic character Voice of Decency from 12 Years a Slave). I hesitate to say the film owes us that, though - one of the things that bothered me in the wake of The Wolf of Wall Street was people insisting the film glorified Jordan Belfort (I thought the film depicted him; its real criticism was on the people who venerate his actions, including the audience). Does this film glorify its characters? Maybe? I thought Gosling was an intentionally annoying brat with a useful Jenga prop.

[Milky Joe]

I didn't think the film was in any way "cheering them on." The whole film was incredibly sad and hopeless if you ask me.

[number8]

I think it absolutely did, because they're shown to reflect on their actions. Nothing begs the audience's forgiveness like self-awareness to convey some sort of integrity. If you take DaMU's Wolf of Wall Street comparison, the fact that made it easy for me to defend against the glorification accusation was its unwavering point of view that turns the responsibility of judgment back to the viewers. This movie, on the other hand, already simultaneously goes on the defensive as if to make sure that it doesn't seem like it's glorifying them too much. They did this with Brad Pitt most po-facedly, but also Carrell's final scene being him mourning the immigrants that will get blamed, Gosling shrugging it all off with the "I never said I was the good guy," and maybe most stringently when Jeremy Strong does that speech about not letting the banks get away with their crime and to "kick 'em in the teeth" by taking their money.

The movie concocts this underdog narrative with them using the classic "We have important information and no one's listening to us!" trope, and tries to extend that feeling towards the real guys even after the story's over. I touched on this earlier, but there's a really striking comparison to Spotlight at the end. The post-text in Spotlight highlights the parishes that have molested kids, but says nothing about the characters' lives after they printed that story. No mention whatsoever about them winning a Pulitzer, or writing best-selling books, or continuing their work in fighting sexual abuse. The post-text in The Big Short, however, makes sure to mention that the guy played by Bale tried to go to the media about this story but no one would listen to him, man.

[amberlita]

The post-text in The Big Short, however, makes sure to mention that the guy played by Bale tried to go to the media about this story but no one would listen to him, man.

It also puts a nice punctuation adding that nobody did listen to him, but he got audited four times. I heard a collective chortle and saw heads quietly shaking at how very very sad that is; that's when I knew the audience had bought what the filmmakers were selling. Look America! You can be righteous while getting rich at the same time.

Anyway, you said it right, 8.

[Dukefrukem]

I never commented on this movie; I loved it, but I wish it wasn't a comedy because I love this topic. I feel like if it were directed by McCarthy it would win best picture. The scene where Bale is talking to Goldman Sacks about Credit default swaps, and then immediately after pitching to them he was concerned Goldman Sacks wouldn't be able to pay him, because when they fail, Goldman Sacks won't have any money... is 100% brilliant.

I know I'm angry on MC with hipsters, and feminists, and freeloaders etc etc, but I'm probably the most upset at the generation before me who fucked us in the ass with the sub prime mortgages. We can blame the banks all we want, but these people applying for mortgages (basically buying houses they couldn't afford) without looking at what their payments would be when the subprime kicks were certifiably nuts.

I kept thinking of Peter Schiff the entire time.

[DavidSeven]

This was cute but pretty lacking in anything resembling artistry or nuance. Fine as popcorn education, which is an achievement in its own right. Take out the topicality, however, and I suspect you just have a pretty unspectacular caper film. Perhaps too much levity for its own good. I'd like to see this with a colder, Finch-ian approach. The moral indignation exhibited by the primary characters did not strike me as honest or necessary. The fallout speaks for itself.

[Dukefrukem]

This was cute but pretty lacking in anything resembling artistry or nuance. Fine as popcorn education, which is an achievement in its own right. Take out the topicality, however, and I suspect you just have a pretty unspectacular caper film. Perhaps too much levity for its own good. I'd like to see this with a colder, Finch-ian approach. The moral indignation exhibited by the primary characters did not strike me as honest or necessary. The fallout speaks for itself.

Hell yeh. If Fincher made this it would probably be my favorite film of the century.

[Peng]

Steve Carrell's acting really grated me in this. At least the one note he has in Foxcatcher is of the quiet kind. His one note here is loudddd.

[Spinal]

Steve Carrell's acting really grated me in this. At least the one note he has in Foxcatcher is of the quiet kind. His one note here is loudddd.

I'm typically a Carell fan and I definitely agree with this. Too broad, even for this movie. It made the grasp for emotionality at the end pretty hard to swallow.

[transmogrifier]

Carrell is a mammoth weak link in a film that is otherwise fascinating in the way it combines (as part of its very structure) the bro-ey, jokey, king-of-the-world arrogance that characterizes the entire environment that incubated the mess to begin with, the disbelief at the size of said mess, and the anger that no-one seemed to give a fuck as long as the money kept flowing. I like the fact that the characters are not easily pegged - sure, there are token attempts to soften some of them by having them question what they are doing - but that does not stop them holding out their hands and raking in the money, and for Bale's character, it's more about being proven right than any moral crusade.

But Carrell just seemed like Michael Scott in a wig.

[Grouchy]

I think the style really keeps this thing alive. I actually enjoyed it a lot while watching it, but yeah, thinking about it just reveals how shallow and empty it truly is. I also agree with you guys that it has a hypocritical view of its characters. Wolf of Wall Street took a lot of abuse for supposedly glorifying Jordan Belfort, but what it truly did was show us his world through his eyes, and that didn't include guilt trips. Whenever this movie deals with stock brokers having guilt trips about making money at the expense of everyone else it becomes phony and artificial.

I did love the explanations of economy through cameos and simple examples. It's funny because in Wolf Scorsese decided to show how little the audience knows or cares about these very important concepts by having Di Caprio quickly explain them while dismissing them as secondary to the drugs and excesses, but here McKay truly wants us to understand them because so much of the movie hinges on them. On that note, 8, I get why you are against the Margot Robbie cameo, but what in the world do you find mysoginistic about Anthony Bourdain? I love that guy.

[number8]

I think you misread my post. I didn't say Bourdain is a misogynist, or that even the movie is.

I was talking about how the movie is very specific in who its explanatory cameos were aimed to and it's quite a narrow "you" (white yuppie men) despite the fact that the movie is about an issue that affected a much broader swath of people, so I can see why it would be alienating to some when a movie breaks the fourth wall and acts like it's talking to you but you feel like it's actually just talking to the person sitting next to you in the theater.

Bourdain's inclusion was funny to me because he is very much a mascot of rebel-cool-masculinity that's revered by yuppie bros here, and he's been a ripe figure for parody when you want to make fun of how silly masculinity is. So the thought process of "How do we make subprime loans interesting to the audience? I know, we'll get a naked actress and Anthony Bourdain" sounds like a joke making fun of how Hollywood would explain the economy and who Hollywood sees as "the audience" that's almost too on the nose. A lot of the other narrative choices feel that way too. It's not misogynistic, it just deserves some eye-rolling.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, I think I can roll with that. I think McKay is being ironic with those touches, since one of its themes seems to be that the large majority of people are content to live in a system that screws them over in ways they don't even understand, as long as they have the media (represented by Margot Robbie in a bathtub or Anthony Bourdain) to keep them sedated. But it's a valid point as to what the perceived audience of that media is.

[Ezee E]

Very entertaining to watch, even with the doomed result. I imagine the same feeling as being one of the bankers, that since you're one of the ones that's going to come out ahead, you can't help but feel pretty happy about it all, yet you can't "dance" at the same time.

There's enough variable characters in Bale/Carell/Pitt that they aren't all Wolf lunatics. Hell, you get the idea that some of them will eventually turn into Carell by being in that kind of business for so long.

But the energy, the awareness it wants to bring to you, is pretty awesome actually. Played straight and it would be kind of boring.