‘Dumb Money’: Toronto Review

Dir: Craig Gillespie. US. 2023. 105mins

An unusual underdog saga about an ordinary investor who inspired a grassroots movement that scared Wall Street’s major hedge funds, Dumb Money is a snappy, entertaining picture that taps into a lingering resentment about how rigged the financial markets feel to many Americans. I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie applies the same slick tone to this comedy-drama based on the 2020 event in which video-game store GameStop suddenly became a prized stock, despite the company being deeply in the red. As a quirky David taking on Goliath financial powerhouses, Paul Dano communicates the anxiety experienced by millions who fear they’ll never pull themselves out of their economic situation.

Viewers might experience deja vu while watching Dumb Money, which repeatedly invokes The Social Network

Dumb Money plays as a Gala Presentation in Toronto, with Sony releasing in the US in select cities on September 15 before expanding. (A UK launch is planned for September 22.) Comparisons to The Social Network are inevitable — for one thing, the nonfiction book the picture is based on is called The Antisocial Network — as they are to The Big Short, another film that explored real-life Wall Street practices. A supporting cast that includes Pete Davidson, America Ferrera and Seth Rogen may boost Dumb Money’s theatrical prospects in the US.

Dano’s character is Keith Gill, a husband and new father living in a small Massachusetts town during the pandemic who has a growing online presence thanks to producing videos in which he sings the praises of a stock he believes is undervalued: GameStop. Encouraging his subscribers to buy, he’s pleased to watch GameStop’s share price steadily rise — which panics Gabe Plotkin (Rogen), who runs an elite investment firm that’s been shorting the stock, betting it will plummet. People like Keith are suddenly rich thanks to GameStop’s ballooning share price, while Gabe is losing billions — but what will happen if that balloon bursts?

Gillespie contrasts the Keiths and Gabes of the world, the former with a minimal net worth while the latter enjoy extravagant luxuries. Several of the film’s central players are real people, although Dumb Money creates fictional stand-ins for Keith’s legion of online admirers who started buying GameStop, hoping it would make them wealthy while severely damaging Wall Street speculators who needed the stock to crash. Whether it’s overworked single nurse Jenny (Ferrera) or college sweethearts Harmony (Talia Ryder) and Riri (Myha’la), who are drowning in debt, Gillespie puts a human face on the class resentment of average Americans who are tired of bailouts for the one-percent. Dumb Money sometimes oversells its populist message of income inequality, but the performers give these ordinary-folk characters extra dimension.

Dano has the film’s trickiest role as this soft-spoken, nerdish young man who adopts an even geekier alter ego when he’s online. The actor never mocks his character’s quirks — for instance, Keith insists on rocking a red bandana and a series of garish shirts on camera — while suggesting that his unusual way of looking at the world helped him deduce GameStop’s stock potential. Dano is quite good opposite both Shailene Woodley as his concerned but loving wife Caroline and Davidson as his going-nowhere younger brother Kevin.

Viewers might experience deja vu while watching Dumb Money, which repeatedly invokes The Social Network. Kirk Baxter, who earned an Academy Award for co-editing the David Fincher picture, provides this new film with a similarly fleet forward momentum, while composer Will Bates aggressively emulates Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ Oscar-winning score with its ominous undertones and icy keyboards. (Additionally, two of The Social Network’s subjects, twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, serve as executive producers.) Dumb Money doesn’t possess that film’s steely intelligence or fascinating array of characters, but both pictures seduce audiences with the minutiae of how these real-life schemes were hatched and the power plays orchestrated by the main participants. 

In Dumb Money, the gaining and losing of fortunes happen literally overnight, leading to joy and anguish — with some of that anguish felt by the everyday Americans, who wonder if they should cash out now or hold and see if GameStop’s share keeps climbing. For the film’s have-nots, the stock’s sudden explosion could change their lives, unless they stay in too long and the share price crashes. Gabe and his influential cohorts will do anything to ensure that crash occurs, creating a sense of dread that people like Jenny will see their fluky financial whirlwind evaporate at a moment’s notice. Gillespie gives the proceedings a kinetic rush comparable to a brief but palpable high. The long-term dividends may not be substantial, but Dumb Money profits from its energetic investment in an engaging tale.