The Big Short floored viewers in 2015 with gripping comedy and thrilling drama based on the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, stacking the cast with top-billed actors and summarizing a complex tale with a searing take on the impossible magnitude of the situation. Be sure to check out this modern biographical staple before it leaves Netflix on November 1.
The Big Short Plot Summary
The 2008 stock market crash happened, as New York Times bestseller Michael Lewis’s 2010 book claimed, due to the massive oversight of the United States housing bubble in the decade leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis. Filmmaker Adam McKay, with screenwriter Charles Randolph as his collaborator, sought to dramatize this book in 2015 with a rare feat in the financial world: accessibility to the general public. Jumping across the stories of the traders who foresaw the impending loan crisis (though only one uses their real name, with many of the rest using pseudonyms), The Big Short largely succeeds in their tale of attempting to short the housing market, financially gain if the market takes a downturn.
McKay’s Dramatic Career Gambit
Former SNL writer Adam McKay became a household name through five consecutive Will Ferrell-led comedies, bookended by the two satirically farcical Anchorman films. Coming on board to write and direct a more serious venture like The Big Short, McKay had to ensure the tone came out right. Too sullen and jargon-heavy, the shocking true story behind the film could bore audiences, but too frivolous, and it might come across as profiting off of a financial tragedy that impacted the world. Luckily, all involved hit the right notes to deliver intensity and humor in equal measure, lampooning the careless self-interests of the nation’s banks while effectively communicating what happened in ’07 and ’08.
‘The Big Short’
Every step of the way, McKay and the remarkable acting team of Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt deliver the concrete and emotional details of the whole story, conveying expertly how the audience should feel on every rung of the senselessly intricate ladder that is the finance world. Less blatantly vulgar than The Wolf of Wall Street but with no less contempt for the stupidity of those who caused the crisis, The Big Short aims to educate as much as entertain, using many characters and details that only the book’s readers might recognize. Though this movie could never be confused with a documentary, the financial terms, processes, and hypocrisy shown in The Big Short are all clearly outlined while rarely going over the average viewer’s head.
The Simultaneous Power of Entertainment and Inspiration
The Big Short‘s greatest successes come from its identification with the audience; unlike McKay’s similar fact-based film Vice, this movie wants us to follow the clear path they have outlined through the weeds of the most complex financial systems of the 21st century. McKay’s humorous foundation remains the undercurrent in all his films, but his last decade of filmmaking demonstrated his desire for viewers to understand the world’s problems. Be thrilled all you want, he seems to say in The Big Short, but do not pretend you cannot see what is going on and stay informed because history continues to repeat itself through ignorance, both willful and unintentional. The fact that this movie can relay this message with an electrifying presentation speaks to its place as one of the best of its niche kind.
The Big Short is streaming on Netflix.
