Oddly, I wasn't a fan. I thought it was very well-made and well-acted, but it felt like a giant plea for sympathy for the people in the finance industry: An argument that these were real people trying to do the right thing, in many cases extremely ethical people who, even when they did something they knew was wrong, felt REALLY, REALLY bad about it, and that, okay, they triggered a giant economic collapse and took home huge bonuses for doing so, but they had kind of a shitty day, and this one guy's DOG DIED, for cripes sake.
I guess I didn't see it as a plea for sympathy at all. I didn't feel sympathy for any of them, but I did see them as real people making decisions way out of their league, but decisions that I could comprehend.
To me, it as an intimate study of how a bunch of people were doing a job, the nature and complexity of which they couldn't even understand. And because they were a bunch of alpha-dog poseurs, they came to work each day with gusto and bravado and acted like they understood what they were doing until someone pointed out that they'd taken themselves to the edge.
And once that was pointed out, they decided to destroy the economy so that their company could survive. That moment, where Jeremy Irons says, "We can't help ourselves" just made it clear why their industry can't be trusted without major regulation.
I didn't like the characters, but they felt real to me in a way that a bunch of mustache-twirling villains weren't real.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-04 01:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-05 12:36 am (UTC)To me, it as an intimate study of how a bunch of people were doing a job, the nature and complexity of which they couldn't even understand. And because they were a bunch of alpha-dog poseurs, they came to work each day with gusto and bravado and acted like they understood what they were doing until someone pointed out that they'd taken themselves to the edge.
And once that was pointed out, they decided to destroy the economy so that their company could survive. That moment, where Jeremy Irons says, "We can't help ourselves" just made it clear why their industry can't be trusted without major regulation.
I didn't like the characters, but they felt real to me in a way that a bunch of mustache-twirling villains weren't real.