Margin Call (2011)

Margin Call (2011) is a thriller set in a tumultuous 24 hours for an un-named Wall Street firm during the 2008 financial crisis. It opens with staff-cuts to the entire floor. 80% of the staff are being fired, among them is Stanley Tucci’s character Eric Dale. Dale works in Risk Management and thinks he’s stumbled upon something big, but he’s unable to complete his assessment because as the firm remind him as politely as possible, it’s not your problem any longer. In an attempt to do the right thing he hands his former subordinate, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) a USB with his workings saved onto it. Sullivan, a former rocket scientist has no trouble finishing what Dale started but what he finds out is bigger than he expected. The findings are constantly reported to higher pay-grades as they all struggle to plug the leak in a sinking titanic.

There is constant talk of ‘MBS’ (mortgage backed securities), ‘historical volatility levels’ and ‘leverage’. To anybody who hasn’t been involved in investment banking this may not mean a lot. Luckily it doesn’t mean a lot to many of the higher paid people in the firm either who are constantly asking to have the situation clarified in plain English until everything, including the wider situation, is explained through a series of metaphors and analogies. To teach a wide ranging audience about the comings and goings of high betting Wall Street firm, would be too hard a task for a mere film, but the situation is explained and re-explained in a way that’s real to those who know, and understandable to those who don’t.

Margin Call is to Wall Street, what The Wire (2002) was to crime. This doesn’t mean that Margin Call is a gritty, all-encompassing drama, but that it attempts to change perceptions. The Wire told audiences that not all drug dealers were bad-guys and not all cops were good, Margin Call tries to tell an increasingly anti-Wall Street society, that these investment bankers aren’t all the caricature villains they’re made out to be, but that they’re human beings with both good and bad qualities. 

Stanley Tucci plays Eric Dale, an engineer turned risk assessor. He dedicated 19 years of his life to the firm. In this incredible ensemble, Tucci’s role is the first to draw sympathy. With all the surrounding anti-Wall Street Media, we, as an audience, start the film with generally bad pre-conceived notions of all the characters. Dale doesn’t look like he belongs in the same category, he doesn’t appear to be flash or cocky and after he’s been let go his reactions seem genuine.

Zachery Quinto plays Peter Sullivan, a former Rocket Scientist at MIT turned junior risk assessor. As the walls start to crumble Sullivan’s concerns seem to be directed in the right place. He’s modest and he cares for the futures of his colleagues and the everyday people on the street.

Penn Badgley plays another junior employee and friend of Sullivan, Seth Bregman. Bregman only seems to be along for the ride because he’s Sullivan’s friend, he doesn’t contribute anything to the actual situation. There is one point that he earns sympathy, but other than that he isn’t particularly likeable. He finds it necessary to constantly bring up the point of earnings. He tells Sullivan how much he earned, how much his boss Emerson earns and questions how much the CEO earns. Unlike other characters who have a history in other fields, he only ever wanted to be an investment banker, and it seems apparent that the only thing drawing him to that career was the financial gain. 

Paul Bettany seemed to kick-start his career with either overly likeable (A Knight’s Tale -2001) or overly nice (Wimbledon -2004) characters but really earned his stripes with the unnamed gangster in Gangster No.1 (2000). Since the mid to late 2000s though, he’s played around with villains or anti-heroes. His choice of films has often been suspect, but he’s proven he can play both heroes and villains of pieces. This history stands him in good stead for his role has Will Emerson. Emerson appears very callused by the nature of his work which gives him a very cynical view of the general public and his industry. This cynicism often paints him as the banker ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protestors have come to hate, but the same cynicism grounds him and keeps him loyal where it seems to matter. The film is full of incredible performances but Bettany’s is one of the best.

Kevin Spacey is one of the central actors of the ensemble. He plays Emerson’s boss Sam Rogers. While Dale and Sullivan are nice guys, they’re fairly junior, Rogers has a more vital role in the firm, while keeping his integrity. That isn’t to say he’s naïve, the way he deals with the cuts at the opening clarify that, but his attempts to stand up to his superiors, his honesty with his staff and his emotion in regards to his personal life let the audience know that he is the moral compass they can follow. Spacey’s performance in this role is expectedly fantastic.

Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) is the head of securities Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore) is the head risk and they both comes across as selfish and two of the key people to blame for the firm’s current problem. Cohen is more than comfortable doing the morally wrong thing for the safety of the company while Robertson is constantly on the back-foot defending her situation. While Baker’s performance provokes only feelings of distain, Moore’s is more ambiguous. She is by no means likeable, but it is clear that she is the only woman this high up in a male dominated business and it seems that she had to become this unlikeable to get to that position.

Jeremy Irons flies in as the enigmatic CEO John Tuld. The enigma is whether the audience like him or not. His business methods aren’t likeable, he’s not intelligent enough to have worked his way up to his position (as he states in the board-room) and his perception of money proves how detached he is from normal society. And yet his calm charisma and his open friendliness to the staff below him make him seem the complete opposite of the greedy, selfish CEOs the media would have us believe are in charge of all Wall Street firms. Just when you think you’ve heard a Gordon Gekko style quote: “There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.” Tuld follows up by saying he doesn’t believe in cheating. He isn’t a caricature, but his dislikeable features are all there. Like Bettany’s role, Irons’ performance is another to keep an eye on.

New York is used to represent the anonymous general public who are to be affected by the events unfolding throughout the film. The beautiful skyline is often shown as separate from the characters. With the exception of two or three short scenes there is either a great height or a car or building separating the principle cast from the city, and the scenes that are exceptions to this involve characters sympathetic to those who’ll be affected by the aftermath. New York, like London and many other cities, is a melting-pot of cultures and communities and is a great representation of the unsuspecting citizens. J.C Chandor, the film’s writer and director draws this representation incredibly and makes use of the height of the sky-scraping offices to capture the beauty of the city in his symbolism.

This is Chandor’s first feature film; his history was previously in documentaries and adverts. His father worked on Wall Street for 40 years, which gives Chandor an edge that makes his perception of Wall Street more human and more real in comparison to films such as Wall Street (1987). The direction is great, but it’s the writing that really proves his worth. The script is full of moving and insightful speeches. Emerson’s speech about how the public will view them, Tuld’s briefing room dialogue and Rogers’ speeches to his staff are just a few gems within an exceptionally intelligent script.

So what is being said? Is Chandor blaming the greed of the high-flying investment bankers? Or is he defending them? Greed doesn’t seem to enter the equation of the characters (with the exception of Seth) and because of this lack of greed (that is so consistently present in the media), audiences might think he’s defending the bankers. There is never really a defence though. Chandor’s film tells the public that there are two sides to every coin, and not to tar everyone who works on Wall Street with the same brush. Just because somebody works for a corporation, it doesn’t mean they deserve the same credits and blames handed to that company. Chandor is saying that bankers are human beings, but he isn’t claiming their innocence. Even the likeable and sympathetic characters go along with the company despite knowing the exact moral implications. Rogers goes along with it under protest and Dale finds himself going along with it in order not to make his own life any more difficult than it has to be. They’re human and sympathetic characters, but they’re not innocent or righteous.

As for greed, only Seth seems to believe in Gordon Gekko’s idea that greed is good. Emerson, while on the roof of the office building having a cigarette, explains to the two junior employees that humans will always spend what’s in their pocket and explains how easy it was to spend his $2.5 million earnings of the previous year. It’s not that he craved, or still craves, more; simply that once he earned it he was able to spend it. 

Chandor also seems to be making a statement about the hierarchy of such companies. This corporate ladder that might not be visible in everyday proceedings is climbed very quickly by the audience. Everybody seems to be introduced as somebody else’s boss, the layer-cake is clear.

As the ladder is climbed, the characters seem that little further out of touch with the employees. Each time the situation is explained to another boss it needs to be clarified and simplified once more until the top is reached and Tuld asks Sullivan to explain in the same way he’d explain it to a child or a dog. Both the apparent ignorance at each level, and the constant need to take the issue higher, undermines the authority of each boss. The power that each character feels (or wants to feel in the case of the more junior characters) is far from real power.

Margin Call has the potential of being praised or condemned: The film never focuses on the so-called 99%, the general public. It doesn’t ignore us, but it doesn’t really introduce us. Those who see the bankers as the enemy can claim that Chandor is defending them. Sim Segal, writing for Forbes tore the film to ground for the use of ineffectual arguments and half-truths to change perceptions of the actual events of 2008. Although Segal raises some interesting points, his argument is let down with some entirely ill-perceived thoughts of specific scenes. David Denby, writing for the New Yorker, picks up some very similar points but reads them in a completely different way finishing his review with:

“If Wall Street executives find themselves at a loss to understand what the protesters outside are getting at, they could do worse than watch this movie for a few clues.”

Whichever you read the sub-texts, the film is worth a watch on the merits of the acting and the writing alone.

Written by Edward L. Corrigan on 25/11/2011