Contrarian Corner: The Big Short
Monday, January 18, 2016 at 9:00PM 
For this edition of Contrarian Corner, we'll have to redub it "Conflicted Corner". Lynn Lee discusses her mixed feelings about the Oscar's primary dark horse.
In this year’s Best Picture race, The Big Short is the one title that virtually no one saw coming very far in advance. Which is appropriate for a movie about an event that only a handful of people predicted. And while it’s fallen back a little in the shadow of The Revenant’s nomination-leading surge and Globe wins, it’s still very much in play for Oscar’s big prizes. With five nominations (fpicture, director, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, and editing) under its belt, as well as a strong performance both at the box office and the Critics Choice Movie Awards, who knows?
The Big Short's ascendance hasn’t gotten it much love here at TFE, where the prevailing reaction has been a mixture of incredulity and disdain. I get it, especially if you’re mourning the omission of better films from Oscar’s best picture lineup. And yet, dare I say I’m neither surprised nor dismayed at its inclusion, and on the whole am pleased at its success? Yet also oddly conflicted.
Frankly, I enjoy The Big Short, while recognizing its limitations...
It’s not cinematic in the usual sense; there’s nothing remarkable about it aesthetically. It relies on narrative gimmicks and shortcuts that can get tiresome after a while, and that essentially assume – albeit with a wink and a nudge – that the viewer has the knowledge and attention span of a gnat. The acting, including Christian Bale’s Oscar-nominated performance, is perfectly fine but hardly awards-worthy. Plus – and here I think is the root of TFE’s general reaction to towards the movie – it has the superficial aura of a “bro” movie, in that it focuses entirely on a bunch of white male investors who are trying to make millions by exploiting a Wall Street blind spot. The trailers for the movie enhance this impression, presenting their efforts as a quasi-caper movie, as if shorting the housing market were somehow analogous to raiding a casino.
The impression, however, is misleading as the movie is, if anything, anti-“bro.” Its message is not “look how awesome we are,” but “can you believe this??” Based on a nonfiction book about how these guys—yes mostly guys, as the financial world is—shorted the U.S. housing market, because everyone else was either oblivious or deliberately looking the other way, The Big Short deals with a complicated underlying subject that can be impenetrable to those who don’t work in finance. But it’s a subject that matters far beyond the financial world, and director Adam McKay, who also co-wrote the screenplay, clearly wanted as many people as possible to understand why it matters. He also made the shrewd calculation that the most effective way to do that was not just to inform, via a documentary or even a serious straight drama, but to entertain—by making an absurd (tragi)comedy that would read as satire if it hadn’t actually happened.
And you know what? It works.
We may roll our eyes at the use of Margot Robbie in a bubble bath, Anthony Bourdain preparing bouillabaisse, or Selena Gomez high-rolling at blackjack as vehicles for “subprime mortgages and CDOs for dummies” tutorials. But I’ll remember their explanations longer than those of, say, Inside Job, a movie I saw and didn’t retain at all. Fourth-wall breaking aside, The Big Short is briskly paced and sharply funny in its takedown of the sheer wtf-ness of the housing bubble. At the same time, against all odds it gets us to root for the upstart guys who are betting on this Jenga tower to collapse, even while showing the cataclysmic implications of such a failure. And it concludes with the most devastatingly ironic bait-and-switch possible, no less infuriating for knowing it’s coming: the collapse happens and the guys get their money, but the house still wins. The rotten-to-its-core system is rescued and resurrected in all its odiously corrupt glory, while ordinary people suffer the fallout.
It helps, of course, if you share McKay’s anger at Wall Street for getting away with this shit and his sense of urgency in not letting them do it again. The point, though, is that he smartly channels that anger into accessible entertainment while still getting across the core message to a much broader audience than that served by books and documentaries on the same subject. The movie makes the viewer laugh even as it hits a nerve—the same nerve, I suspect, that’s animating so much of the crazy political discourse in the U.S. right now. It’s not film as art, but rather film as cleverly packaged agitprop. In other words, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of a film like Carol. Nothing wrong with that. They were made, and can be appreciated, for different reasons. The Big Short is a timely movie; Carol is timeless.
But does The Big Short deserve its Oscar nominations? Outside of adapted screenplay, probably not.
In my view, to be considered for best of the year a film has to show more cinematic craft or artistry, or to embrace its medium as something more than a vehicle for a political message. I’m not sure The Big Short does that, although I also think naysayers underrate the difficulty of what it accomplishes. I don’t want it to win but its current level of recognition isn't a bad thing, especially if it gets more people to see the movie and think about the issues it raises.
How about you? Which nomination are you most conflicted though not unhappy about?
Reader Comments (25)
Dare I say it: I liked THE BIG SHORT more than SPOTLIGHT. It was more gripping, told a more original story, and, yes, was about something that matters to more of us than SPOTLIGHT. The moral ambiguity of having us root for people who were rooting for the economy to collapse was also more complex than anything in SPOTLIGHT, which was a pretty simple good guys v bad guys narrative. I thought the scene with Melissa Leo was one of the best single scenes of the year. The use of people like Margot Robbie and Anthony Bourdain wasn't just a cheap gimmick, it was a pointed satire about what people will pay attention to and what they won't. But it is probably a film of the moment. Indeed it might not age as well as something like SPOTLIGHT, and it's certainly no CAROL.
Lynn: *isn't* in that last sentence. And agreed that it probably only deserves an Adapted Screenplay nom. Also, I'd probably have preferred Carell surprising over Redmayne, even though neither of them (or, I'm guessing, DiCaprio, or Cranston) will wind up in my top 12.) Also, would add a third blue link tag for Inside Out.
Dan H: If Wall Street still does shady and immoral crap, it'll age well. Probably not well enough to deserve nomination over Carol, Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton or Ex Machina, but well enough that it's probably a very good thing that it blocked the possibilities of Trumbo and The Danish Girl getting in.
I'm fine with admitting I just didn't understand what was going on plot-wise half the time, even with Margot and Tony explaining stuff to me. Maybe I don't even have the attention span of a gnat, though I prefer to think it was a shortcoming on the movie's behalf.
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the film. It is a very good pamphlet about economy and politics, but maybe not a great film that will endure the test of time. But who is to say that a film have to be remembered one hundred years from now. One could argue that it is more important for a film to have an impact upon its society than to be an ancient relics for future archeologists.
And I must say that the film doesn't lack ambition. It tries to explain to anyone how the economic crisis of 2008 came to be. And unlike a lot of movies based on a true story, like the imitation game, or the theory of everything, who avoid talking about its subject matter, and instead use science as a background for a spy flick or a love story, the big short, really tries to explain economy. It is not something you see everyday in mainstream cinema, and that's why McKay had to invent something new. Maybe it is not always a success, but if you heed the film enough, everything is there for you to understand. I really think that's is quite an achievement. That's why I think the film deserves its nominations.
I think the HBO movie Too Big To Fail would be a better analogy since comparing a documentary to a fictional movie seems unfair. I do think TBTF is a far superior film.
My problem with The Big Short is it seems like such blissfully unaware movie. For all its intent that it knows the fallout the average American suffered, we don't really get that. At the end of the day, these rich white men got a little bit richer and all the movie showed was a sad/good dad Hispanic man losing his home and when the bros shamed a stripper for buying into the American dream.
FURTHER - were the asides with Margot Robble, Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain supposed to be a criticism on the average American's over the top indulgences and our wanton consumerism - or was that side effect completely unnoticed? Was it intentional that she's drinking champagne in a penthouse bubble bath? Is it intentional that they're playing high stakes black jack or eating at luxurious 5 star restaurants? Is it supposed to be showing us something the average American can't have or shouldn't have or will never have? I want to feel it's tied with the stripper shaming and a subtle side critique on American consumerism but then it reneged on that?
It's another movie made by clueless rich people who are trying to connect with the middle class but have no idea how to do it. It's hard for me to see any merits for it when the acting is so overdone, the editing is all over the place (I mean random fade to blacks in the middle of a scene - wtf is happening), and the direction is slapshot at best. So with all that failing AND your story is reductive and stale? Pass.
I have to admit that I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to.
I'm so happy to read your level-headed approach, Lynn (even if I'm in the negative on the film).
@Rahul: You bring up some very good points. Just how interested am I supposed to be in the bankers who screwed us really? Especially when there have been other films, both fictional and non-fictional, that have covered that side of the situation better. At this juncture, I'd much rather watch a film like "99 Homes" that deals with the other end of the spectrum instead of getting caught up in just how we all got screwed by these sociopaths that our society seems to otherwise extol.
I really like The Big Short a whole lot and i have to agree with Lynn here about most everything (especially the Anti-bro). Though not cinematic in the classic sense, there is an anger and dynamic that is far from the usual lazy direction seen nowadays in comedies ( Apatow, etc.). It also somehow endlessy quoteable and features great instant memes such as the Margo Robbie bathtub, "cat shit wrapped in dog shit" , "ZERO!", etc. There is something in the film which invites you for more viewings of it, either to fully understand all the terms and things going on, or either to trully appreciate all of the craft that has gone it.
Somehow, although I wouldn't even say that McKay is in the top ten directors this year, it's a film I keep thinking about and coming back to.
For me, it deserves the Best Adapted Screenplay win that's coming to it (even though it's a great category this year without a bad apple in the bunch) but I can completly get it not getting any other nominations and be fine with it.
But maybe it's just me getting used to being complely off with the oscars and their preferences.
I don't have any issues with the cutesy clips (I was laughing at the Robbie sequence, though I later read on Twitter that no one involved in the film would have ever thought to put Matt Bomer or Channing Tatum in that bubble bath, and I couldn't agree more). The explanation was enlightening, but if those clips showed up in Inside Job I'd be much more on board, and after seeing that (much better) film I feel like I already understood these topics, even if a refresher was fair enough.
I even like the occasional bro movie these days. I disagree with you on it being anti-bro... it's bad guys in suits going after bad guys in suits and exploiting them to get ahead. I guess the difference between me and the people who liked the film is I really can't stand these characters, because I find the people they're portraying truly offensive. They did NOT go out of their way to stop this, grandstanding at a conference aside - they sat back, made a ton of money while people who didn't understand it crumbled, and supposedly felt bad when it happened. Perhaps it's the risk the filmmakers run given the topic, but I never felt better about these people just because they found the loophole.
More importantly, I'm really concerned that this "worst person on earth as antihero" theme is going to stick around. The Wolf of Wall Street is the obvious comparison point for me, and I do think that movie asked some questions about what was happening, even if it was often celebrating moments that left a lot of viewers angry. I think we're actually cheering on the real life villains of Wall Street here, and I can't stomach critical acclaim for movies like this on a yearly basis, with the assumption that we feel mixed about the film's so-called heroes. It doesn't excuse anything, and if the assumption is that it provokes conversation, we're kidding ourselves. The movie congratulates these guys for beating the system when they could have been making a difference.
"I’ll remember their explanations longer than those of, say, Inside Job, a movie I saw and didn’t retain at all." Same here!
I saw the movie about a month before it came out, and all I remember is how scared I was when it ended. I even called it "the scariest movie of the year" on Twitter. I feel that, as usual, awards set too many expectations on movies, that they can't live up to, especially when they "steal" the spots of other beloved movies.
Like "Mad Max", this movie just wan't made for me (I don't respond to action movies or movies about finance), but I couldn't help but admire its ambition and determination. So many people comment on its misogyny, when it's the rare movie that's actually aware of that and pointing out why it's wrong to begin with. I doubt Margo Robbie would've gotten in that bathtub if she didn't know she was taking part in satire. While I too prefer films about women, I don't think a film is inherently flawed for having male protagonists. Heck, for all I know Melissa Leo gave my favorite performance in this!
eurocheese: I don't think the movie congratulates them, it shows what happened to these men who became rich while others sank, it challenges us to take the "fun" of a heist movie like "Ocean's Eleven" and actually wonder what happens when such crimes are committed in the real world. If people "root" for them, McKay wants them to see just how fucked up that is. I believe the film's moral complexity is bigger than your ""worst person on earth as antihero" perception. I never rooted for them for example, I saw it more as all of them selling their souls to the devil. The movie left me filled with such angst.
Jose, how would you say the movie highlights that it's wrong to cheer them on?
eurocheese: it's not a "morality tale" in a regular sense, like something Spielberg would do for instance. I think McKay is smarter than that. Right and wrong are concepts that for better or for worse, mean different things to different people. While you and I agree that these people are all disgusting, we see for instance the real estate dudes who brag about how they scam people. We know there are people like that out there, who are admired by others for flat out robbing and destroying lives, McKay presents them to us and says we can either want to be like them (and it's OK) or think they're repugnant (and it's also OK). I mean, drug traffickers in Mexico for instance are considered heroes in smaller villages where they bring food, drinkable water and produce jobs.
The way McKay uses his main characters as "antiheroes" like you point out is precisely playing with the concepts of right and wrong that Hollywood shoves down our throats all the time. Why do we root for the criminals in "Ocean's Eleven" if it's not for the fact they're movie stars? What they're doing is still wrong from a legal point of view...I don't think the movie "highlights that it's wrong to cheer them on", it leaves that to the discretion of each viewer, and treats us like adults in the process. You have the impression it cheers on them, while I saw it as a tragedy, these men have all the money in the world, but have no souls left. The interesting thing is that it left me thinking if they even care about their souls to begin with. It's not a black or white movie in any way, I believe that it wanted to make us uncomfortable and angry.
Eurocheese : Who said that the protagonist of a film needs to be a hero?
When you go to a movie, you bring something with you : your own moral judgement. In the big short, McKay actually plays with this. First, he uses all the tools of manipulation provided by the cinema to make us cheer for the bad guys, and then, he puts small details here and there to make us take a step back and judge the "heroes". Like one of the final shot, where we see steve carrel weeping over the evilness of the housing bubble. Then there is a wide shot where we see that he is sitting on the terrace of his appartement looming over central park, showing us that despite the tears, he is not better than the rest of the traders.
But now you're clarifying that he is not telling us how to feel about cheering them on. You said the opposite before, that it makes us feel fucked up. McKay and the script are perfectly fine with what these guys are doing, and in fact, told the story in such a way that you and many other viewers would defend their logic. That is, in fact, a moral stance. In my opinion, it's an irresponsible one. The movie is not, at any point, considering whether or not its lead characters are disgusting people. My point is that it should at least genuinely ask the question. It's not giving us both sides - it's giving us the positive spin on some seriously nasty people, and that is being mistaken for even-handed.
@Duck - my opinion agrees most with your take on this very important, and yes - great film.
"Network", "Nashville", "Wag the Dog", these are similar challenging and creative films that both explained and satirized big issues. I think "The Big Short" is brilliant at explaining the financial meltdown, and that scene with the Jenga tower says it all.
It deserves all of it's nominations and I'm hoping it will get BP, because it takes on the government and financial establishment and shows how stupid they were and are.
I love the title card at the end that tells us that Christian Bale's character is only interested in WATER. Anyone with any knowledge of the environmental movement can tell you about a lot of issues related to water. The crisis in Flint MI is just the tip of the iceberg. Coca Cola is making a fortune of of bottled water.
In a world where 65 billionaires control half of the worlds wealth I love films that take them on.Good Luck to Alan McKay, and I hope he considers doing a film that takes a look at the Koch brothers.
As for the Big Short, it's bloody brilliant and I recommend highly. Easily the most important film I've seen this year.
eurocheese: I guess you misunderstood me, everything I got from the film is my own personal perception of it. The only thing I think is clear about the film is that McKay doesn't digest anything for us. Perhaps you saw cheering and that's completely valid. We are not the same person after all.
Honest truth is that I don't go to movies to learn lessons or be taught morals, so I don't think the movie is "irresponsible", it's not handing people cocaine, meth, vodka and then giving them the keys to a race car or guns. You feel McKay doesn't raise any questions, and I respectfully disagree. You don't think it questions the characters, and I feel it does at every turn. Especially in the end. It seems you expected the director to put them in prison or kill them or punish them? You say they're nasty characters and I agree. So why if you think they're nasty, and I think they're nasty, do you not think other people think they're nasty too?
I understand that you're not condoning their behavior. We disagree on whether the movie questions their motives at all. I wanted an example because I think everyone assumes the movie is asking questions about morality, but I haven't seen anyone articulate the questions it actually addresses. I was trying to point out that entering a story from, as we acknowledge, the POV of nasty characters, does not equate to actually questioning their decisions. I do think all films are responsible on that level - not by having characters that seem moral, but in the way it addresses appalling behavior from its characters.
But, we seem to be on different pages and fair enough. :)
Thank you, Lynn, for this reasonable take on the film. I
enjoyedliked it well enough, but thought it was over-edited, like the director and editor were VERY self-consciously trying to make the film feel more "important". Which is fine, but it called far too much attention to itself. Which, frankly, describes the film as a whole: Constantly calling attention to itself. It's a rather smug and self-satisfied film, while at the same time being very smartly-judged in how it attracts and speaks to its audience. I think you're right about the Oscar nominations: Adapted Screenplay would have been enough.Yeah, what Hayden said. And I don't have a problem with the Oscar nominations, especially since I'm choosing not to look at it in terms of who wasn't nominated.
Lynn here - thanks for a good discussion.
The antihero question is an interesting one, because it's true the movie doesn't really take a position on how we should ultimately feel about our protagonists. Most of them are purely self-interested, with the arguable exception of Steve Carell's character. I do think we're supposed to emphasize with his growing disgust and his consternation when he realizes (1) how the meltdown affects people he actually knows, like the Morgan Stanley woman played by Adepero Oduye, and (2) that the system will live on. But he doesn't really try to do anything about it, possibly because he doesn't see that as within his purview. Ditto Brad Pitt's character, who pulls the two "garage band" investors up short by reminding them who loses if they win. And even in defense of those kids, they also seem genuinely flabbergasted that the rot runs so deep that there's no way to eradicate it.
Bottom line, they didn't engineer the failure; they just profited off it. Which makes them scavengers, not criminals. They're symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself, and that's really their primary function in the movie. You root for them mainly because you're rooting for them to be proven right.
lylee -- thanks. the scavengers versus criminals line helps me clear some of the fog from my head about this. I find this an interesting discussion and I also admire movies that take on actually important topics that AREN'T long agreed upon (and thus safe) like the bulk of message movies that do well with awards.
but on the other hand, as with other Oscar issues being discussed a lot, in the end when it comes to "best" i'm rarely concerned with message and politics of who is delivering them than i am with actual execution and artistry* ... which is why the biggest controversy for me this year is not the big short or oscars so white but the absence of Carol in picture & director.
* but even that is sometimes hard to come to grips with. The Revenant has much more artistry than The Big Short but what is the actual execution for or saying to us? Feels empty(ish) to me which is it's own giant problem.
now i'm way off topic.
thanks to everyone who commented. though. really interesting discussion to read
This movie just isn't nearly as goo as 99 Homes, which has been ignored by audiences and now the Academy. Michael Shannon, Andrew Garfield and Laura Dern are a better acting team than Bale/Carell/Gosling, etc., and you don't have to put up with Big Short's smugly self-congratulatory snark. The key to why I don't like The Big Short as much is where the two hotshots from Colorado come to New York and find out about Christian Bale's fund in a prospectus. Then they turn to the camera and tell us that's not what happened, and expect us to be tickled pink. Well, why not just tell us how it really happened in the first place?!
My main problem with the film was that it did not earn any of the emotional payoff it thinks it has. If the film had maybe been about *one* of these characters - likely Steve Carell - and allowed the screenplay to flesh him and his own story out without having it butt heads with so many others it would have been more successful. Instead the competing storylines all merge as one and the film becomes a mess of tones (Bale and Carell are in a completely different movie to Gosling who's in a different movie to the Pitt/Wittrock/other-dude storyline) that do not gel into a compelling whole. The addition of the tutorials with Margot Robbie and the like are cute, but ultimately feel like shorthand for actual strong writing. Like when in MARGIN CALL they had Jeremy Irons' character (you know, the head of the firm) ask for the crisis to be explained "in English".
I also take umbrage with so many people being shocked by this film when it's been told in other movies (documentaries like Inside Job, narrative features like 99 Homes) and done better with more a personal focus that I prefer. The general aura of mansplaining to us dummies by rich men feels insulting.