BITE-SIZED: Margin Call (JC Chandor, 2011)

Realising that the market is about to collapse, an investment bank decides to engage in a fire sale that might save the company, but destroy everyone who works for it.

On its face, Margin Call did not seem like a movie I would enjoy. For one, my understanding of the financial sector is poor, and the subject did not sound that interesting to me.

What a turnaround. 

It has now become a movie that has become a favourite.  

Eminently rewatchable, I have watched this movie a number of times. Every time a scene pops up on Youtube I find myself watching it and then going back to watch the film from the beginning.

A movie about people in the eye of the storm, Margin Call is a fantastic thriller. Considering most of the action is limited to a few floors of the company's building, this is a real achievement.

Taking place before the great recession starts, the film shows people trapped in the mindset of upward mobility.

There are no people with principles - they are still after the money. Characters are either cold-hearted predators or willing enablers, aware of what they are doing to the economy, to ordinary people, but they are too plugged into the system to do anything about it.

With a deadline to get rid of their toxic assets - and the knowledge that the sale of these assets will wreck their sector and destroy their careers.the film begins to build the sense of our 'heroes' being under siege.

This sense of mounting conflict is reflected explicitly in the way the characters view their task - the monologue that rouses the staff is phrased in militaristic, almost patriotic terms.

The film does not go for the pat, easy route of having the company fail - they manage to complete the fire sale, and the story ends with CEO Tuld (Jeremy Irons) looking ahead to the future. He already has historicised this crisis as one of many - as an inevitability that can still be turned into an opportunity.

It is a wonderfully hideous finale - a case of un-learning so timeless it feels even more relevant than it did in 2011.

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