There is one idea nestled inside Dumb Money that’s worth a damn: Community. Or, as the movie (possibly unintentionally) illustrates, what passes for community in the absence of one.

Based on the nonfiction book The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich, Dumb Money rehashes the real-life stock market drama during the winter of 2020-21. COVID-19 era restrictions certainly isolated a lot of people, but everyone here feels painfully lonely to begin with. There’s Jenny (America Ferrera), an overstressed healthcare worker and single mother; Harmony (Talia Ryder), a college student with a financial axe to grind; and Marcus (Anthony Ramos), an underappreciated retail store employee. Each separated by thousands of miles but united by their phones and Keith Gill (Paul Dano), a Boston-based analyst and YouTube influencer by the name of Roaring Kitty. He’s goofy, soft-spoken, disarming, and intelligent. He’s crunched the numbers and decided that the retail chain GameStop is being undervalued by Wall Street, and hedge funds are shorting the stock. “I like the stock,” he tells his followers and buys a bunch. The others, who hang on Gill’s every word and post, follow suit. Soon, an army of everyday traders—what Wall Street calls “dumb money”—armed with the Robinhood trading app storm the gates and drive GameStop’s price up, bilking the so-called masters of the universe for billions in the process.

That part, you probably know. One of the mistakes Dumb Money, directed by Craig Gillespie with a screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, makes is that there really isn’t much to say about an event that just happened. Mezrich’s book came out in September 2021, a mere seven months after Gill testified before Congress. I’m sure if the publisher could have, they would have brought the book to press even quicker than that. Sony probably would have done the same with Dumb Money. The beauty of getting there first is that you don’t have to say anything.

The other mistake Dumb Money makes is the assumption that the audience is already on the side of the impoverished investors and not the out-of-touch Wall Street players. Financially speaking, they most likely are. But it makes Dumb Money more a lecture than an exploration. 

Gillespie’s narrative is surprisingly inert—especially considering the rambunctious energy and emotional depth he brought to I, Tonya—and for as much as characters talk about their backstories, hopes, and dreams, they never seem to break free of their one-dimensionality. Doubly so for the antagonists of the piece: billionaires Steve Cohen (Vincent D’Onofrio), Ken Griffin (Nick Offerman), and Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen), and one-half of the duo behind the Robinhood trading app, Vlad Tenev (Sebastian Stan). Tenev is so out of his element I half expected him to be a puppet for a much more intelligent and sinister villain. 

Everyone here feels like a puppet, including Caroline (Shailene Woodley), Gill’s wife, and his parents (Kate Burton and Clancy Brown). Only Gill’s brother, Kevin (Pete Davidson), behaves like a real person. If you’ve seen any movie with Davidson in it, then this performance will feel familiar. But at least he’s trying. 

Like a lot of “based on real events” narratives, Dumb Money concludes with archival footage of the real-life players in the same scenes we just saw minutes earlier. What is the purpose of this? To prove what we just saw wasn’t fabricated? Does anybody really care? Then, of course, we get lots of white text on black screens explaining how much so and so lost, how much so and so gained, and how this blistering hot moment changed the way Wall Street does business. It’s such an unremarkable conclusion that the true moral of the story goes unmentioned and doesn’t need to be. Dumb Money isn’t about upsetting the system, restructuring the balance sheet, and making the bastards pay. It’s about making money. How you go about making it is your business.

Dumb Money (2023)
Directed by Craig Gillespie
Screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum, Rebecca Angelo
Based on the book The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich
Produced by Craig Gillespie, Aaron Ryder, Teddy Schwarzman
Starring: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, America Ferrera, Myha’la Herrold, Talia Ryder, Anthony Ramos, Vincent D’Onofrio, Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, Sebastian Stan
Columbia Pictures, Rated R, Running time 105 minutes, Opens Sept. 22, 2023