Craig Gillespie has made some serious crowdpleasers in recent years, but he’s not necessarily good at recognizing that. At the 2017 Toronto Film Festival premiere of I, Tonya, for example, he remembers turning to his wife and saying “I don’t think that went well.” The film, of course, went on to earn three Oscar nominations and a win for Allison Janney.
Hopefully this time he was a bit more prepared for success — Gillespie’s new film Dumb Money premiered in Toronto on Friday night, ahead of its wide theatrical release on September 29. Even without the expansive ensemble cast there to introduce the film, Dumb Money was a big audience hit, recounting the 2021 GameStop stock frenzy with anarchic energy and a dose of class warfare fury. Led by Paul Dano as Keith Gill, the YouTuber who persuaded millions of everyday people to invest their money in GameStop and stick it to hedge funds in the process, the film captures a wide tapestry of people trying to make Wall Street work for them — and the power millionaires and billionaires trying to wrest that power back. “This film is all about the disparity of wealth and the frustration of wanting to be heard, and feeling like the system is rigged against them, and that’s what’s going on right now,” Gillespie says.
Listen to our conversation with Gillespie on this week’s Little Gold Men podcast, and learn more about the film in our first-look feature by Anthony Breznican.