For Once, the 2008 Financial Crisis is Accessible and Entertaining
Adam McKay's The Big Short doesn't really have any right to be entertaining. It details how the big banks bundled and re-bundled mortgages, among other financial improprieties, and then depicts the 2008 crumbling of the world economy through the eyes of a few men standing to profit from the whole thing. The movie should feel like a boring and/or depressing economics lesson, but The Big Short instead delivers a funny, outrageous, and even moving experience.
The key to the film's success is that the men trying to short the system are characters in every sense of the word: Dr. Michael Burry (Chrsitian Bale) is a hedge fund manager on the autism spectrum who spots the impending subprime mortgage crisis first; Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) is a slick investor who learns of Burry's prediction and tries to shop the notion of shorting the housing market around Wall Street; Mark Baum (Steve Carell) is a brash and irritable trader with an axe to grind whose firm follows Vennett's lead; and Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) are young and savvy investors who also learn of Vennett's pitch and decide to short the system with the assistance of retired banker Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt).
These disparate misfits are all bursting with personality and varied motivations, and it's their semi-outsider status that makes them so interesting as audience surrogates. Dr. Burry looks to short the housing market simply because he sees a place where a lot of money can be made and that's his only duty as a hedge fund manager. Vennett and Geller and Shipley also do it as a way to make money that essentially no one sees, but it's Baum and his team that anchor the film and deliver the necessary outrage. Baum hates the big banks and is appalled at the apparent stupidity of all involved who end up risking the entire financial system on the assumption that something usually solid (housing) will remain dependable regardless of their actions. Carell plays a larger than life character but makes him feel entirely real, particularly as the actual economic crisis begins to hit, and Baum and the others shorting the system realize the gravity of what it was they were betting on happening. Bale also communicates a sense of dread, and does so wonderfully given that his character is someone inherently less able to connect emotionally to his work.
Based on Michael Lewis' book of the same name, The Big Short chronicles the years leading up to the 2008 crash in the lives of the above mentioned individuals, and included in their stories is the minutiae of the subprime mortgage crisis. McKay and co-writer Charles Randolph have succeeded in communicating every relevant detail in their script, and the actors all excel at discussing CDOs, tranches, and a myriad of other financial terms without any of it sounding foreign to them. The information flies at the viewer fast and furious here, and the filmmakers aren't afraid to use unusual tools to make sure it's all understood. Gosling narrates the film and occasionally breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience directly, and sometimes these addresses are introductions to segments about the truly salient details. Then Margot Robbie appears in an elegant bubble bath and explains terms like "subprime," or Anthony Bourdain makes stew with three-day-old fish while comparing it to banks repackaging unwanted mortgages into something sellable. These might be simple scenes that only say, "Now really pay attention to this stuff," but they work, and the film and audience are better off with the extra clarity and focus they provide.
The highest compliment I can pay The Big Short is that just about anyone should be able to leave the theater with a better understanding of the 2008 collapse than when they walked in. It's not definitive, and the film often feels loose and frantic as it spins several informative plates at once, but it never succumbs to the weight of its information. The result is a film that is at once all over the place and laser-focused, and such an approach befits the wild system and few clear-eyed individuals it depicts.