Jeremy Irons’ Monologue In ‘Margin Call’ Is A Pep Talk For Fat Cats
“It’s just money”
Jeremy Irons plays a charming eel in the gripping 2011 thriller Margin Call, a movie where paper shuffling and keyboard clacking and hypermasculine tough talk between men in sharp suits replace actual physical violence.
Irons is the boss of bosses at an unnamed investment firm that finds itself in a sudden crisis that is so potentially severe that Irons arrives in the middle of the night via helicopter to oversee it. The crisis in question mirrors the 2008 housing bubble burst that brought down the storied firm Lehman Brothers and almost toppled the global economy.
I can watch this movie over and over again. The dialogue cuts, the drama sweats, the despair is thicker than blood. Tom Wolfe called the small clique of rich and powerful people who rule the economy ‘Masters of the Universe’ in his ’80s financial world satire Bonfire of the Vanities. Well, in this movie, these ‘Masters of the Universe’ are flawed, buttoned-up, nicotine gum-chewing bullshit artist human beings, whether they like it or not.
Written and directed by J. C. Chandor, Margin Call is a movie about the banality of greed. The brokers and executives are all brilliant and backstabby, nerds who are high on testosterone and money. They want, and their want is…
