During the final months of 2008, most of us bore witness to a chain reaction of financial ruin. Investment firms across the country, seemingly strong, had to declare bankruptcy due mostly to the housing bubble collapse and the subsequent loss of value in real estate pricing. This brought about a shift in the economic structure so drastic, it required nothing less than a congressional bailout. It’s this backdrop against which Margin Call weaves a cold and devastating yet highly compelling tale. By having it take place almost entirely within the walls of a New York investment firm, and by having the characters speak nearly indecipherable financial lingo, writer/director J.C. Chandor does something rather interesting: He completely immerses the audience in the panic and confusion of the period. To make us understand what’s actually being said is not the point.
As the film begins, the firm, which is unnamed but is said to be loosely based on Lehman Brothers, has just seen 80% of its employees laid off. One of the casualties is Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), the company’s senior risk analyst; his opening scene, in which he’s fired by a team that fires people for a living, is eerily reminiscent of Up in the Air, and about as equally timely. Just before he leaves, he hands a USB drive to a young analyst named Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) – who, for now at least, is still an employee – and instructs him (1) to analyze the data and see if he can finish what was started, and (2) to be careful. Later that night, when many of the employees are out at a bar, Peter plugs in the drive, takes one look at his computer screen, and is immediately disturbed by what he finds. He calls a fellow analyst, Seth (Penn Badgley), who then contacts their supervisor, Will (Paul Bettany), who in turn contacts his boss, Sam (Kevin Spacey). They come back to the office. They too are shocked.
What exactly is on that computer screen? We don’t physically see the data, but we do hear a lot of complicated fiscal jargon attempting to make sense of it. It essentially boils down to this: Their firm, as well as the entire market, is headed for disaster. The rest of the film depicts an emergency meeting at the office, one that will last the entire night. Other employees, including the easily mocked Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) and a senior executive named Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore), analyze the data as completed by Peter – and of course, they come to the same inescapable conclusions. The early morning hours will see the arrival of the firm’s CEO via helicopter. This would be John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), who likes to speak in condescending simple terms and insists on those around him doing the same. This includes Peter, who was literally a rocket scientist at one point in his life.
All throughout, most of the characters are defined by intriguing personality quirks. Seth, for example, enjoys speculating on the salaries of his superiors. He doesn’t always wait for the right moment to start talking, either. Will, who alternates between smoking and anxiously chewing on pieces of nicotine gum, doesn’t seem to care how off-putting his cynicism has made him. Funny, how you can grow so weary of the system and yet remain so comfortable in the lifestyle it has afforded you. In one scene on the firm’s rooftop – after briefly leaning over the railing and noting that it’s not about the fear of falling, but about the possibility that you’ll actually jump – he explains to Seth and Peter how easily a $2 million salary can be whittled down to just over $100,000. That figure, I guess, is the wealthy man’s version of the poverty line.
All the characters are nicely developed, but not in any usual way. We’re not made to sympathize with them. I would wager that most of them are not, properly speaking, even human beings. They’re motivated not by public service or even by emotions, but by an instinctual need to keep their company afloat. Irons’ character takes a disturbingly Darwinian approach to the problem: The firm will sell off their holdings before the buyers realize they have no value. It’s not about loyalty to customers; it’s simply about survival. The really sad thing is not that he proposed such an idea, but that everyone was resigned to it happening. A scene late in the film, a conversation between Tucci and Moore, is shockingly matter of fact in this regard.
There are only two instances in which emotions get the better of the characters. One involves Seth in a bathroom stall. The other involves Sam, who is genuinely saddened by his dog’s cancer diagnosis. Thematically, this reaches beyond the notion that even soulless corporate drones have the capacity for selflessness; the dog symbolizes the scarceness, frailty, and even the death of innocence. The final shot, which carries this idea even further, is tragic in more ways than one. Margin Call is nothing less than an American tragedy, especially for this very day and age, when the greed and corruption of Wall Street are foremost on everyone’s minds. It will be interesting to revisit this film when and if the country is brought back on track. Will future audiences appreciate that it was made at a time when the economy was in shambles, jobs were hard to land, and all reasonable attempts at financial reform were fought against?
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