This is largely due to a tight script and superb cast even though the story rarely leaves the sterile confines of a high-rise and some cars over a 24 hour period. Just speak to me in English.". 'Margin Call' isn't exactly based on a true story, but it's a collective set of true stories that occurred prior to the financial crises fictionalized into one crisis-explaining narrative. No one wants to have the reputation of being a snitch in an industry where hiring and bonuses are based on relationships as much as quarterly results. Despite a tough story to get across to viewers, Margin Call succeeds brilliantly. When confronted with Sullivan's analysis, Sam says, "Oh Jesus, you know I can't read these things. Nobody Knew She Suffered from Alzheimer’s. After 80 percent of the floor is axed, Emerson's boss, Sam, a wan Kevin Spacey, gives a pep talk to the traders left standing. It's over. If he doesn’t sell first and start the catastrophe, someone else will. For more information about canonical metadata, You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. In the film’s ending scene, the bank’s CEO stares out over the Manhattan skyline and recounts for his junior analyst a near-epic list of the world’s financial booms and busts—dating back some 400 years. And this is the core dilemma that is so vexing to the American people. Requiring individual pay to be more strongly linked to long-term investment returns and firm performance would be one step in the right direction, but even that strategy poses problems. One of the characters has a sick dog. Margin Call attempts to give an honest answer to that question. As the elevator closes, he hands Sullivan a zip drive and says cryptically, "Be careful. The kind of collective action problem that brought about the financial crisis is exactly the kind of market failure where some kind of outside intervention is most appropriate and necessary—where it should be in the interest not only of the general public, but also of the banks themselves, for the government to step in and establish rules to prevent anyone from starting off a competitive cycle of ever-riskier behavior. Jake Bernstein was a business and financial reporter for ProPublica. ", Faced with the pile of excrement on the books, the archly named Tuld (Lehman Brothers CEO was Dick Fuld) decides the bank must unload it, and quickly, before customers wise up. All you need to know about the moral universe Margin Call inhabits is on display in the opening scene of the movie. There were no capitalist masterminds who were able to maliciously game the entire financial system, no conspiratorial “fat cats” who single-handedly brought about the crisis. These they sold to their customers knowing they were worthless. They briefly wonder whether that's "right," but push the unwelcome thought away unanswered. Spoiler alert: This article discusses key scenes from the film. So it should. The problem with this portrayal is that it simply does not reflect reality. As reporters covering the beat know, Wall Street is a reluctant participant in introspection. And indeed, the bankers seemed to agree on this: After the crisis, all the major investment banks issued multiple statements supporting a move by the federal government to impose regulatory reform. They see the whole picture. "Margin Call" depicts the last night of good times on Wall Street, as a deadly certainty travels up the executive ladder at an investment firm: Disastrous speculation in the mortgage markets is leading to the firm's collapse. Every new set of rules has limits and creates an incentive to skirt them or offload risk to overlooked areas. He contacts his supervisor, Will (Paul Bettany), who takes one look and calls his boss, Sam (Kevin Spacey). The real question to take away from the movie is not whether we should reform our financial and economic system to prevent another crisis. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc. Electionland 2020: Absentee Vote Tracking, Drop Boxes, Poll Watchers and More. Others are called in for an all-night emergency meeting until at dawn as a helicopter brings in CEO John Tuld (Jeremy Irons). Then you're necessary. The question is whether we can at all. This scenario was enacted at many Wall Street institutions on the autumn of 2008, and fundamental financial reform is still being opposed. Later when Seth bemoans the fact that normal people will be hurt by their actions, Emerson's ferocious response is shocking both for its amorality and its kernels of truth. He's mining deeper truths than the intricacies of credit default swaps. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work. Beyond the sheer entertainment value of the movie, Chandor's biggest coup is his willingness to indict a system rather than simply blame the individuals within it. How can something so bad, that hurt so many people and caused so much damage, have come about without any overt wrongdoing? The outcome is inevitable, so what good could it possibly do for him to sacrifice himself and his firm and all his employees’ jobs if it makes no difference to the outcome? It is not a precise overlay of the financial crisis. This isn’t an unreasonable reaction; when something as disastrous as the Great Recession happens, it is natural to want a bad guy to blame and punish. The dog is the only creature in the entire film that anyone likes. Hollywood, for its part, has always been inclined to this kind of Manichaeism—after all, every good story needs a hero and a villain. It means that the problem can’t be fixed by just rounding up a few bad apples and throwing them in jail. Trump’s Vaccine Czar Refuses to Give Up Stock in Drug Company Involved in His Government Role. The downturn has begun. Through our government and through our own actions in the marketplace, we all set the rules, we all took advantage of the massive expansion of cheap credit and affordable housing and ballooning asset prices, we all benefitted from the upside of the bubble, just as we are all suffering from its aftermath today. There is no percentage in looking back. Why Do Nonwhite Georgia Voters Have to Wait in Line for Hours? A great corporate executive must have a strain of ruthlessness. In this world, traders earn bonuses for screwing their customers. Debuting at a time when the Occupy Wall Street movement seeks to make caricatured villains of bankers and much of the public puts the blame for a lagging economy squarely on their shoulders, this movie offers an extremely thoughtful, fair and—for that very reason—ultimately much more powerful critique of how our financial system really works. Now they are gone. They are not to be thought of again. He itemizes his expenses for them, including $76,520 for hookers, booze and dancers. If no individual person or firm’s actions can make a difference, the only reasonable thing to do is assume everyone else will follow their most selfish (and possibly destructive) instincts.

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