Sunday, September 15, 2013

A respected financial company is downsizing and one of the victims is the risk management division head who was working on a major analysis just when he was let go. His protg completes the study late into the night and then frantically calls his colleagues in about the companys financial disaster he has discovered. What follows is a long night of panicked double checking and double dealing as the senior management prepare to do whatever it takes to mitigate the debacle to come even as the handful of conscientious comrades find themselves dragged along into the unethical abyss.

Review

Saw this at New Directors festival in NYC and really enjoyed and was engrossed in this film. A great cast with splendid performances. The film is very intense and although it is about a company involved in the financial meltdown of 2008 it really is about much more. I particularly liked the way the film depicts the frightening absolute and ruthless power of the corporation over the lives of people that work there as well as the implications and ripples for everyone else.How those people get sucked in to the embrace security and pleasures of what the corporations have to offer and the consequences and vulnerabilities of those choices.The freedom and comforts that we cherish here in twenty first century USA are not as secure as we might think. Don't want to say much more other than that "Margin Call" is very involving and in the end affecting and thought provoking.It packs a powerful punch.