Tradeuse

So, I'm not sure why, but I didn't have very high expectations. To say it's got a line up of quasi B-list actors would not be fair. But to be honest it ran through my mind. But I took a shot and was completely surprised. I was engaged from the beginning. Everyone is on point and drives an intriguing plot that kept my interest from start to finish!

Equity (2016) was directed by Meera Menon. It stars Anna Gunn as Naomi Bishop, a high-powered Wall Street executive whose specialty is taking corporations public with IPO's. (IPO stands for Initial Public Offering.) She has taken nine companies public, but her most recent effort has fallen short. Now, she's working with another company, and she's fighting for the opportunity to take it public.

James Purefoy plays Michael Connor, a hedge funder who is Naomi's lover. Alysia Reiner plays Samantha, Naomi's assistant, who is loyal, but who has ambitions of her own. Sarah Megan Thomas portrays Erin Manning, who works for the federal government. Her job is to discover and punish corporate crime, and she's very good at it. All three of these actors do very well in their roles.

I enjoyed this film, because it gave me a glimpse of a world I don't know, and don't really want to know. The acting was superb, the sets were excellent, and everything looked and felt real. As I noted, I don't know if the plot was realistic, but the sense of wealth, power, and greed felt real to me.

I don't see this as a movie about a woman trying to break through the glass ceiling. I see it as the story of a hard-driven, ambitious person, who is up against some strong, vicious, and crafty competitors. That's the life she's chosen, and that's the life she's living. It's not a happy life, even if you win. There's hardly a happy moment in the movie. Be prepared for a tale of ambition and treachery.

We saw this film at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work well on DVD.

Note: Equity has a horrible 5.4 IMDb rating. Normally, we would never go to a movie rated this low. However, when I looked at the ratings, it became clear that women liked the film, and men hated the film. As usual for IMDb, many more men than women vote. So, if men hate a film, that will lower its rating, even if women like it. My suggestion--ignore the rating and see it.

Not sure why this movie was so bad. Perhaps the slow pace and the enforced slow dialogue. Perhaps the bad acting. In either or both cases this movie should be given a wide berth. I loved Anna Gunn in Breaking bad, in fact she was instrumental in it's popularity but I watched a different actress here. Her interpretation in this 'Wall St' type movie was simply awful. Totally unbelievable. I always turn off movies when the leading lady has either Botoxed lips or stupidly unreal white teeth, for some reason I can't take it serious from that point on. So many women in the industry feel the need to wreck their natural looks. Anyhow, back to the movie, I dare anyone to watch Gunn's on-screen divorced husband acting out a serious scene and avoid breaking out into laughter at his facial expressions. Again terrible acting. This movie could have been interesting but the casting director had lost his marbles. The writing was drawn out and laboured with far too many close up 'still life' moments. Take heed, it's valuable time you are wasting if you labour through this stuff.

I'm giving this movie a better review than most because I found myself engaged in the nuanced messaging, the attempt to do something different, and the fact that I felt entertained and went into the rest of my evening talking about what the movie was about. Any movie these days takes a risk when it scratches in new territory and the reviews here seem nit picky and unfair in some cases. For example, if dialogue is "slow moving" then that is a director/scriptwriter choice that in a movie that has thought itself out, like this one, you can see in the overall look and feel.

Look for example,at the early scene where Naomi is speaking at the women's empowerment group. Watch the camera scan and you see more of the lettering in the poster appear behind her. It goes from "men" to "omen" to "women" and her monologue relates to each as it goes by. This doesn't happen by accident, folks, and this is just one instance of nuance in the movie, including the ending which makes you have to reflect a bit and fill in with your own opinion and/or judgment about the state of how we regulate (or don't) the investment banking sector.

I like movies that make me want to pause the stream and talk about what we just saw. But that's just me.

It's a woman oriented financial film drama directed by a woman filmmaker. That makes it empowered by women. On the perspective it was my first experience, so I think it could be the only of its kind. It is not as bad as it looks, those who liked financial related films like 'Margin Call', 'The Big Short', 'Glengarry Glen Ross' et cetera would enjoy it as well. This film stayed true to its title, so that's what you are going to expect, but nothing a bit more than that.

There are unexpected turns in the narration. Particularly the characters, that too the females. It is about the commitment and trust in the colleagues. No matter what you do, the company always judges you by your result. The pace might look slow, but it gets better in the latter half. The film turned into kind of thriller and ended with a little drag, though satisfying.

Anna Gunn was so good and looks like we have here another talented woman director Meera Menon. This film did not get as popular as its counterpart on the same theme, I mean men's Wall Street thriller. But somewhat I liked it and seems a sequel is not a bad idea, after how this story had ended. Finally, this is for the selected viewers, so those who are from the outside of its bandwidth won't end watching it happy, hence the film will lose its rating, but not the quality.

6/10