Fantastic!

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2020)

The Big Short is such a frustrating story to watch, providing us with a peak behind the curtain of the collapse of the American housing market and the eventual global financial crisis of 2008. I say frustrating because the story delves even deeper into the apathy of big banks in causing this crisis. Their willingness to driving the economy off the edge of a cliff, knowing that they had a parachute with a healthy bonus to boot is maddening.
It's a story told from the interwoven perspectives of three different investment fund managers, with the addition of Ryan Gosling's Deutsche Bank worker in the mix. The Big Short is a little hard to follow at times, not unexpected due to it's subject matter. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on mortgage bonds, funds, credit ratings etc, although thankfully the film is pretty forgiving in assuming a lack of knowledge. In an inspired move, the film introduces several well known celebrities such as Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez in fourth wall breaking intermissions to explain terminology. That still didn't get me up to speed, but it helped. Other fourth wall breaking asides from Gosling also helped to provide context around meaty financial concepts.
With this in mind, The Big Short did a great job in making what could have been an incredibly dense and boring subject into a fast paced and gripping story. Unsurprisingly a lot of this is due to the star studded cast. Ryan Gosling injected the majority of the humour into the film, playing a no nonsense banker out for a profit, the Wall Street archetype. Christian Bale, as expected, gave a well measured and precise portrayal of the socially awkward and brilliant fund manager. The real standout for me was Steve Carrell, who plays yet another fund manager, but a much more cynical one, who, due to his empathy, we can relate to most as an audience. All the performances were great, but these three were the real standouts.
The Big Short triumphed in many other areas as well. The direction was so slick and Adam McKay really excelled. As mentioned, he managed to transform what could have been a very heavy film into something more resembling a thriller! Truly remarkable in my book. The soundtrack was perfect and used very well throughout to heighten the drama and suspense where necessary.
Despite the ins and outs going over my head, The Big Short manages to be really engaging, exciting, and also funny in parts! Definitely deserving of its several Oscar nods, a great film.