Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“Dumb Money” is the latest film from Director Craig Gillespie (“I, Tonya”) and is based on the 2021 book, “The Antisocial Network.” The film tells the story of the GameStop short squeeze of 2021 and how internet investors caught hedge funds off guard. The film focuses on Keith Gill (Paul Dano, “The Batman”), a financial analyst and part-time YouTuber who regularly looked over the Reddit forum r/WallStreetBets and provided his opinions on what stock was worth investing in or not. The one he decided to roll with: GameStop.

The story is the strongest part of this film. Because it is a biopic, it makes the story that much more wild and fascinating. The film provides perspectives of people that bought in; a struggling nurse played by America Ferrera (“Barbie”), a lesbian college couple and a GameStop retail employee. The perspectives showed the different situations people were in when buying into the stock. 

Considering the short squeeze happened in January 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic was still very prominent and was integrated as a part of the film. This debacle gave people something else to pay attention to during that period of time. The film shows hedge fund CEOs and their perspective on the situation at hand. Seth Rogen (“The Fabelmans”) plays Gabe Plotkin, the CEO of Melvin Capital, who lost considerable amounts of money to the surge of “GameStock.” The varying views of the GameStop surge show a battle between the rich and the common person, which should both interest and infuriate audiences. Everyone knows how the story goes and how it ends, but it is interesting to see what possibly went on with all sides, including the common folk, hedge fund CEOs and Robinhood.

The performances are solid. There is not a single bad performance in the film. Dano was a bit melodramatic at times, but for the most part, everyone showed up on their A-game. Along with Dano, Rogen and Ferrera, you have the likes of Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”), Sebastian Stan (“Pam and Tommy”) and Pete Davidson (“Saturday Night Live”). The star-studded cast mostly shines in the characters they play, whether real or composite.

The music choices are interesting. The film’s music supervisor, Susan Jacobs, stated in an interview with Variety how important it was to get a song like “WAP” with the limited budget the filmmakers had to work with. 

“I wanted something that would set us back in COVID and that time,” Jacobs said. 

The score itself is fine for what it is, but it is the licensed songs that stuck the most because it sets the audience back to what was popular at the time. 

The cinematography goes for a minimalistic style, with little to no camera movements. It works mostly because the story is what is grabbing the attention of the viewer. Also, while the editing splices in news stories, social media videos, comment sections and memes surrounding the GameStop surge certainly add to the absurdity of the story, they may have been used too many times for their own good.

“Dumb Money” has its fair share of issues, from comedic scenes being stretched to weird structuring to overreliance on edits. However, it does not stop it from being one of the most enjoyable films that has come out this year. Biopics love to play it safe nowadays, but “Dumb Money” does enough that satisfies with fun performances and editing, a solid minimalist style and a fascinatingly insane story that shook up the internet and showed how much of a “game” the stock market is.

Image from Sony Pictures Entertainment via YouTube.com