Islamabad OCTOBER 12 (Online): Craig Gillespie talks about making a film on the 2021 GameStop short squeeze that shook Wall Street, and how it’s the story of a financially disgruntled nation.
Craig Gillespie, popular Australian director, who has helmed Oscar-nominated films like Lars and the Real Girl (2007) and I, Tonya (2017), is back with Dumb Money, a financial dramedy adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2021 book The Antisocial Network. It’s based on the GameStop short squeeze phenomenon, which shook Wall Street a couple of years ago.
Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money releases in Indian cinemas on October 13
In an exclusive interview, Craig discusses how he mined humour, social commentary, and thrill from this real-life story. Excerpts:
You said that you shot this film over a very short period of time, and very quickly, so that you don’t second-guess yourself. In that respect, is filmmaking a lot like stock trading? Where you just keep taking risks and leaps?
(Laughs) I can’t say much. There are all kinds of trading and filmmaking. Some where people keep taking risks, some where they’re very methodical about it. For me, the pace and intensity of it gives an adrenaline that I like to bring to the set. To be open, to change, adapt, and grab opportunities, I like that kind of energy. Since it ran parallel to the pace and intensity of what’s happening in the film, it worked nicely together.
You’ve gone from Million Dollar Arm (2014), a baseball film set in India, to I, Tonya (2017), a mockumentary skating drama, to Cruella (2021), a Disney adaptation, to Dumb Money. What do you gain from this genre-hopping?
To me, it’s always about the material. This was a fascinating, riveting story that I saw first-hand with my son as it was happening. In every case, it’s the story. And then you figure out how to tell that story and how to make it look and feel different, since I don’t like to repeat myself. Even though it’s a true story, and I’ve done true stories in the past, I discussed very consciously with my team to step away from what we’ve done before. Nicolas Karakatsanis, who shot I, Tonya and Cruella, gave this a very different style and feel. It just felt very right given what we were trying to do with this story.
It’s a personal story for you since your son was involved. Then how do you strike the balance between the micro and the macro, since it’s as much the story of a whole nation?
It started when Ben Mezrich, the author of The Antisocial Network, went to a cross-section of people who were involved in the training and tried to represent all kinds of trading. It was happening with different groups of people because there were 8 million people trading there. For some, it was about the money. For the others, it was about the cause, making a statement, and making Wall Street hear it. So there was this duality, a complicated mix of people. I wanted to highlight that with different characters in the film.
Dumb Money is a financial dramedy that involves information overload. To make matters worse, it’s set in the pandemic. How did you design the visual palette of the film to make it appealing?
It was an interesting challenge because it’s a lot of people on laptops and phones. So we knew very early that we had to work with a lot of angles and give it a good pace and attention on the edit. It was my first time working with editor Kirk Baxter. He has done a lot of David Fincher films so we really wanted that pressure cooker. Whenever we needed to show the enormity of what was happening, there was a team pulling out from hours of content – memes and late night talk show hosts talking – what worked best for that moment.
I was very excited to show something in our recent history that was as profound to our culture as COVID. Because it’s really the background to what this story is about. Everybody being isolated, the lack of government funding in our country and around the world, and the disparity of wealth people began to be acutely aware of, it was the beginning of that awareness and frustration. To be able to step into a person’s home and see their backgrounds, since everyone was in lockdown, highlighted that disparity. It gave us the opportunity to start talking about things that are very much a part of our lives even today.
Dumb Money will release in Indian cinemas this Friday on October 13.
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