Is it possible to make an interesting non-documentary movie of the recent economic crisis when so much of what actually happened appears incomprehensible, even to those who caused it all to happen? In Margin Call, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and a few other well-known faces give it a go. And while there are no car chases (though there are some lovely cars) and most of the film takes place in fairly mundane offices, the film manages to convey a tense situation and at least tries to explain what, exactly, happened.
But no one really seems sure. In explaining the problem “as if to a child”, Quinto’s rocket scientist Peter Sullivan quickly lapses into econojargon that could well have been Klingon (or should that be Vulcan? Though at least then I presume it would have had to have made sense) though everyone else at the board room table seems to find his explanation sufficient.
My stab it at is this: traders decided to take a whole bunch of mortgages and lump them all up and sell them to other firms as long term investments that would pay interest and thus bring profit. How much interest would of course depend on the interest rates that the mortgage repayments were based, and the traders speculated on what those interest payments and therefore profits would be, buying them on the idea of long term gain and selling these lots for huge immediate profits. That meant that, in the here and now, some companies owned lots of these mortgage investments that had the value of the houses (and, long term, as the houses were paid off by the mortgagees, ought to make money due to the interest on the repayments). But of course, this was all based on the idea the mortgages would be paid back, but with the sub-prime loan scheme, where people could probably not afford repayments at higher interest rates and could just walk away from the property, that meant that the investment companies could just be left with houses that, while pretty, might not actually sell, meaning that the companies would have a huge amount of homes but not a lot else, least of all money to afford sports cars and high class hookers.
At least, that is how it all seems to work in my interpretation. Whatever the actual mechanics, the people running company in the film realise that the bubble can burst, and decide they would rather do that bursting and leave some other company holding the can, or the mortgages. This sounds a bit paranoid, and it is, and the moral implications of bursting the bubble, selling things now deemed to be worthless, and ruining the careers of those who knowingly sell “worthless” investments to other companies are the questions and decisions that generate all the tension.
Jeremy Irons plays John Tuld, the cold, calculating bad guy at the top, a role he has done before and done so well. Spacey meanwhile plays Sam Rogers, the morally torn middle man (again, nothing new for him), with Quinto’s Sullivan the open minded up and comer and Moore’s Sarah Robertson the ice queen accountant who fears she will be made the scapegoat. The main characters are all wonderful, my only real disappointment being the underuse of the awesome Mary McDonnell who appears only near the end of the film as Sam’s wife, with a plastic face and only a few minutes to make a mark.
The film shows the how the collapse happens (and tries its best to explain the way, though I was still a little unsure at the end of it), but then pulls up short of showing exactly what that “collapse” actually means. There are references to the future, to the implications, but there is no actual follow through. Perhaps though, that is because this is a film and not a documentary – Margin Call is all about the call, not what happens afterwards.
One of the hardest things to swallow is that several people during the film claim to have seen “this” coming all along, and that warnings were made, but it seems that the call to action was only made because an underling discovered it all. It is therefore a bit hard to feel any sympathy or empathy with any of the “higher ups” (though this might be a deliberate act on the part of the screenwriters), and it is also hard to feel much of a rapport with the “lower downs” too, considering they are all meant to represent up and coming greed an ambition. Still, with all the thesping talent on board, the actors do a sterling job of making documentary-fodder entertaining and gripping, even if, by the end of things, it still is not particularly clear exactly what went wrong – or, more importantly, why anyone had faith in or thought they understood what was happening in the first place.
Verdict: Margin Call is one of those movies that give actors the chance to act and be seen as good citizens informing the public about what went on in the most recent financial crises to hit Wall Street. The whole cast are on their best behaviour to fill out characters that are sometimes quite cliché (ruthless CEO, young ambitious middle manager shark; high placed woman who might have to fall on her sword) and to make sense out of something that even the most experienced traders and analysts seemed to not understand at all. And they all do a great job, though personally, I would have liked to have seen more of the “and so what happened next?” to really understand the impacts of what they actually did. 7 cents out evey 10.
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