More than one audience member felt that the reason Margin Call seemed so depressing was that the events depict on-screen actually occurred, a small group of traders leaving the economies of the world to deal with their reckless actions. Like the real word, the film a large financial firm is populated by a myriad of people some who are very well-paid and do very little and others who are very effective but wield little influence.
Margin Call recounts a thirty-six hours period when a risk management analyst realizes the precarious position that the heavily-leveraged firm has created for itself and tries to send the message up the food change. More and more people become aware of the scale and scope of the situation and eventually the decision is made to unload the toxic assets to whoever will buy them.
Although cast as the villains in the 2008 market collapse, not all Wall Street traders are bad. Some may be incompetent, others reckless and a few are compensated excessively for their minute contributions to the firm. Realizing that the firm (a thinly veiled Lehman Brothers) must divest themselves of the mortgage backed securities before the underlying asset falls in value, Sam Rogers debates the ethics of selling a worthless product to professional colleagues. Traders must sell as much as possible – eliminating their own jobs in the process – in order to clear the firm’s books. Some characters stand on principles, momentarily, but many choose to accept the money and continue playing the game.
The premise that the financial markets are nothing more than a prestigious casino game refutes the widely-held belief that Wall Street insiders caused extreme harm to the world economy. The firms created more and more dubious products, grouping BBB mortgages together and fabricated securities which were rated AAA while ignoring clear signs of looming trouble. However, the crisis was made worse because so many individuals, companies and governments invested in the scheme, happy to earn returns that were basically money for nothing.
The film emphasizes how the firms did not understand what they were doing. Only Peter Sullivan – played by Zachary Quinto looking very much like Mr. Spock – finally realizes the problem; it took an engineer who the others refer to as a “rocket scientist” to but two and two together. Executives ask Sullivan to explain himself in “plain English” and leave the numbers out. Data is constantly displayed on screens, flashing by so quickly that it cannot be processed properly by those who are manipulated it. Sometimes, the screens, mounted six at a time on a trader’s desk is reflected on a surface and distorted, much like the real value of the securities were distorted as the false gains accumulated.
Suspense is constructed because the audience wants catastrophe to be averted even though they know that the outcome is set in concrete. People will lose their jobs for no particular reason – some did their jobs, sounded the alarm and were ignored because the news was difficult to here, some did nothing to merit being hired in the first place – and reputations will be tarnished. The muted soundtrack, mixing periods of silence with ominous violin chords conveys a sense of an approaching storm.
The characters react to the events differently. C.E.O. John Tuld shrugs it off as a decline in a ceaseless market cycle. Head of Securities Jared Cohen is indifferent to the predicament of those below him in the organization and most concerned with preserving his place in the hierarchy. Rogers, the Head of Sales, seems to genuinely feel for his staff but is ultimately more affected by the death of his dog than those who have been laid off. Neither clients nor the overall performance of the company are valued but rather maintaining the status quo (especially the compensation packages). Viewers found it depressing because it was based on a true story that actually transpired; it is also a story that could easily repeat itself in the near future. ***