. Cohen suggests that they sell off the assets before the market becomes aware. Set at a Wall Street firm on the night in 2008 when the leaders realize that changes in the market will wipe them out if they don't immediately stop selling the products that have been making them all rich, the movie centers on the moral dilemma - recognized by some characters but dismissed by others - that they face in unwinding their positions, saving themselves but shifting the pain to others. His protégé completes the study late into the night and then frantically calls his colleagues in about the company's financial disaster he has discovered. There are a few flaws with Chandor's observant screenplay, for example, the overly analogous scenes of Rogers dealing with his dying dog and a rooftop scene that plays up Emerson's nihilistic nature too predictably.
They have to convey decisions and stand by things that you shouldn't normally do. Watching this should be one too. Even when the imminent truth reveals and the consequences are becoming more clearer, it always feels like they are cut off; there is a scene in a taxi with Quinto and Badgley that underlines this. Hell I would go see him revive Mother Goose, after this debut. His protégé completes the study late into the night and then frantically calls his colleagues in about the company's financial disaster he has discovered.
Storyline: A respected financial company is downsizing and one of the victims is the risk management division head, who was working on a major analysis just when he was let go. One of the first to go is their boss, Eric Dale Stanley Tucci. What happens after this discovery is a series of sharply intense clandestine confrontations with each level of higher-ups recognizing the ramifications of the inevitable disaster, each one far more nuanced in character than we are used to seeing in films from Oliver Stone about greed and immorality. So there are no villains in this movie, just people, richly drawn, beautifully acted characters realized by some of our best actors who relish the opportunity to show what they can do given a killer script and enough screen time between lines to actually be the people they are portraying. The effect is a very clever one: The life of these bankers seems totally severed from the outside world, they have no real connection with normal people and seem to speaking exaggeratingly lack an understanding of real human values, that there could be more behind life than just maximizing and making money.
The film follows several employees at a prominent trading firm. A respected financial company is downsizing and one of the victims is the risk management division head, who was working on a major analysis just when he was let go. Festival releases where I saw it too and the general good response made that an easy decision. They are completely left behind in their own world, which somehow got out of control. In addition, some scenes play either too murkily or too clinically to achieve the precise dramatic effect they should.
The film is very intense and although it is about a company involved in the financial meltdown of 2008, it really is about much more. A great cast with splendid performances. The movie finds a way to hold the mirror up to our civilization, showing how we are all complicit in a collective 'dream' one character says at one point, in response to another who says he feels like he is in a 'dream', 'Funny, it seems like I just woke up'. Great acting talent at hand, great unfortunately real story, which might be a bit heightened for obvious reasons, but still very scary if you think about the whole thing. Synopsis A respected financial company is downsizing and one of the victims is the risk management division head, who was working on a major analysis just when he was let go. As stated above the actors make a big difference. Mary McDonnell has a brief and frankly unnecessary scene as Rogers' ex-wife, and I didn't even recognize the usually hilarious Broadway personality Susan Blackwell as the hatchet woman in the opening scene.
Internally, it becomes a play for power when several key members realize that someone must take the fall for the plot, which will destroy careers forever. But then again it's not as if this didn't happen one way or the other. Many scenes in this movie deal with very little dialogue, instead the body language and the unique atmosphere speaks for itself. One of the film's more pleasant surprises is Demi Moore in cool, brisk form as Sarah Robertson, the top risk officer and lone female executive who knows her career is at stake with the discovery of this folly. What an incredibly sure hand from a director on his maiden voyage! It's like Chinatown, except the 'crime' is something far worse than molesting a single young girl.
What follows is a long night of panicked double checking and double dealing as the senior management prepare to do whatever it takes to mitigate the debacle to come even as the handful of conscientious comrades find themselves dragged along into the unethical abyss. Either are these women robots or have never experienced something like social warmth. It's like the best movie I've seen in a little while. The ensemble is just brilliant, especially Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. What follows is a long night of panicked double checking and double dealing as the senior management prepare to do whatever it takes to mitigate the debacle to come even as the handful of conscientious comrades find themselves dragged along into the unethical abyss. The movie works solely from inside the nameless firm apart from minor steps outside.
The dream is the illusion of easy, risk-managed wealth that the financial markets manufacture, again and again, since the emergence of capital markets 200 years ago, until the illusion morphs overnight into a panic. Released October 21st, 2011, 'Margin Call' stars , , , The R movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 49 min, and received a score of 76 out of 100 on Metacritic, which assembled reviews from 38 respected critics. When they are sitting in their conference room and discuss the incident, it feels somewhat grotesque. Almost hilarious, but sadly true is the fact that many people in these companies seem to have no understanding of Economics and just got into their position due to influence or money. I particularly liked the way the film depicts the frightening absolute and ruthless power of the corporation over the lives of people that work there as well as the implications and ripples for everyone else. How those people get sucked in to the embrace, security and pleasures of what the corporations have to offer and the consequences and vulnerabilities of those choices.