The Big Short (2015)

Ah, now I've seen all the Best Picture nominees from last year! I would've waited a while longer, but once again, my dad had made the rental and I decided to seize the opportunity.

Based on a mostly nonfiction Michael Lewis book, the story focuses on a few men in three basic groups that never come together. In 2005, number-minded hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) discovers what a racket the allegedly stable U.S. housing market has going and then does what no one ever did before: a credit default swap that essentially makes a bet with several banks that the housing bubble will burst soon enough for him to profit overall. People who catch wind of the arrangement and decide to get in on the action include trader Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling); his associate, hedge fun manager Mark Baum (Steve Carrell); and relatively new investing partners Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jaime Shipley (Finn Whitrock), with help from trader Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt). It's no spoiler to say that they win in 2007. For the record, only Burry goes by a real person's name.

The cast also includes Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo, and Jeremy Strong. Oddly enough, unlike my dad, I didn't recognize anybody without being told. Between changes in appearance and mannerisms, they impressed me with their transformations. And on the other hand, there were several unexpected celebrities as themselves.

I should elaborate on that last bit. The filmmakers try pretty hard to make the economic subjects approachable to a mainstream audience, not just for our viewing appreciation but to convince us that no market should be left entirely up to jargon speakers trying to shut the rest of us out. This includes those celebs as well as many of the characters talking directly to the camera, often using analogies. Sometimes we get diagrams as well. The gestalt makes the film feel less like Spotlight and more like a documentary -- maybe Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room -- with touches of The Wolf of Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross, not least in its salty language.

Truly, TBS is its own thing. The informality of the above approach, combined with highlighted character eccentricities (e.g., Burry's complete lack of social skills, Baum's anger issues, Rickert's paranoia), accounts for the classification as a comedy-drama. Sometimes we're told directly that something didn't happen as depicted. Heck, director Adam McKay got his start with Anchorman; no wonder surprises kept coming. Even the considerable soundtrack defies a predictable pattern.

Unfortunately, for all the effort, my dad and I still understood only a fraction of what went on. It didn't give me the confidence to try a more hands-on investment strategy. In the end, I largely felt unable to do a thing about the bitter facts of a broken system. Is that the kind of true story I need?

Furthermore, as interesting as the directorial style was, it rather irritated me at times. The shot pacing can get close to dizzying. The uncharming personality traits wore on me after a while; I relish the idea that Burry's habit of loud metal would get him kicked out of my office within a day. A couple details unrelated to finance were more than I wanted or needed to know.

I agree with the decisions to nominate The Big Short for Best Picture and grant it Best Adapted Screenplay but nothing else. It just isn't as much fun as the trailer made it look. From a purely emotional standpoint, I rank it sixth out of the eight and put it behind Lewis's Moneyball and The Blind Side.