Paul Dano and Seth Rogen find themselves on opposite ends during a tug-of-war, in Craig Gillespie’s take on the outrageous battle of wits between amateur investors and hedge fund billionaires that became the infamous GameStop Wall Street scandal.
Director Craig Gillespie returns to the Festival after 2017’s I, Tonya with the story of another real-life scandal that stars Paul Dano and Seth Rogen on opposite ends of a tug-of-war within one of America’s biggest institutions: Wall Street.
Everybody expects GameStop to fail. With this struggling bricks-and-mortar business further drained by the pandemic, it feels like it’s only a matter of time. Hedge fund managers like Gabe Plotkin (Rogen) bet billions on the hope that it does. Keith Gill (Dano) thinks otherwise. Operating out of his basement as an amateur investor, he’s been adamant for years that the company is undervalued, posting regular updates and videos online to make his case. When a few average citizens start to pay attention, it sparks a bonfire. Keith’s wager becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as big-name investors like Gabe feel the squeeze of its rising stock price. It isn’t long before big money does everything in its power to throw water on the grassroots movement.
Dumb Money captures the rabid creativity of the internet and the power of community many found there in 2021. What started as a silly gamble quickly turned into a national battle of wits between the haves and the have-nots, with nurses, college students, and even rank-and-file GameStop employees jumping into the stock market to try and prove the billionaires wrong. Gillespie brings his wicked sense of humour to this outrageous story from our outrageous times, bolstered by an extraordinary cast that includes Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, and America Ferrera.
Official Selection, 2023 Toronto International Film Festival
Content advisory: drug use, coarse language