Talking about a major and real economic crisis is usually hard and sad, since it actually impacted people’s lives (mostly recent movies include Margin Call and Inside Job). The Big Short, however, is able to talk about the 2008 crisis in an interesting, sarcastic and often funny way.

Based on the book written by Michael Lewis, the story actually begins in 2005, when Michael Burry (Christian Bale), an ex-physician who works for a hedge firm, starts to study the housing market in the US and finds out that there is a bubble. He realizes that it will collapse in the second semester of 2007 and decides to bet against the banks. Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), Mark Baum (Steve Carell), Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) all learn about Michael’s discovery in different ways and decide to do the same thing: bet against the banks.

Filled with jargons from the financial market, The Big Short explains all of them very well to the audience using famous people, like Anthony Bourdain or Selena Gomez. These are a few of the resources used by the director Adam McKay to lighten up the main topic discussed in the movie: how the system is so corrupt that allowed the banks to let the market get to that point.

What also caught my attention in the movie was the fact that we are somehow drawn to root for these outsiders who are betting against the banks when they are, in fact, betting against the entire country’s economy. So their win is everybody else’s loss. By the same token, rooting for the banks is not possible, because they are profiting from the citizens who apply for mortgages. Therefore, you are left realizing that there is no possible outcome that would be good. There is no win-win situation. So the best thing to do is to enjoy the movie and not take sides, since in life we don’t have to take sides every time. It isn’t always a “good guy”-“bad guy” situation. Sometimes both sides are wrong.

The entire cast is great, especially Christian Bale, who plays beautifully a man with terrible social skills, and Steve Carell, who plays an idealist who is tired of the banks’ corruption (yet he works for Morgan Stanley). I also enjoyed the soundtrack, filled with hits from various rock bands mainly because of Christian Bale’s character, who works listening to those songs very loudly.

I strongly recommend this movie, especially if you are not into Star Wars, which is breaking every box office record!

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