The Big Short

Take that to the bank

As we hurtle screaming towards the 2019 Academy Awards like a runaway train loaded with volatile opinions and flared tempers, it seems a good a time as any to look back on an Oscar contender of the past. Back when the Oscars were controversial for far less loaded reasons than matters of diversity and bias, and more for perceived snubs and for perpetuating the cycle of memes about Leonardo DiCaprio not getting an Oscar. 2015 was still a terrible year all told, but one of its brightest moments was the release of The Big Short. And that says way more than you might think.

The Big Short was an adaptation by Adam McKay of the non-fiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis, about the years leading up to the collapse of the American housing market and the following 2007-2008 financial crisis as told from the perspective of Hedge Fund managers who saw it coming. As dry as this sounds, the film makers turn into a series of deep character studies interwoven with a story that is so skin crawlingly infuriating that I found myself wanting to throw things at the screen whilst full of empathy for the people on the screen. All of the protagonists were real people, who did benefit from the crisis. But it was killing them the whole time. They profited because they had to, not because they wanted to. It almost feels like a film about the man who filmed the Hindenburg Disaster, you feel bad for these people who could only do their jobs while history happened right in front of them.

The film knows how dry its subject is, so takes every action possible to keep it light. Characters break the fourth-wall constantly, even pointing out when the story has been embellished to tell you what really happened. And the cinematography is all very fly on the wall or handheld camera, which creates this feeling of being a witness in the room, much like the protagonists, to everything that goes on. And McKay knew that at lot of jargon was going to work its way into the script, so they take a series of jargon busters and celebrity guests to explain just what the hell a CDO or a Sub-Prime is, including the late Anthony Bourdain. Or you could be like me, and watch it with someone doing their Masters in Accounting. Either way, if you don't become angry that the bubble was essentially created by money grubbing bastards who knew what they were doing, something is wrong with you.

The Big Short is a masterpiece, hampered only by the fact it is an adaptation of a subject matter so dense parts of it have to skimmed to skipped to make room for explanation within its densely packed 2 hour run time. It walked away with 5 Oscar nominations, including best Picture, and won best adapted Screenplay. It could be seen as a kind of a historical document of something that was totally unprecedented when it happened. And it times of increasingly hectic actions and consequences, it's good to remember that films can do that.