Review: Arbitrage (2012)
Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling
Director: Nicholas Jarecki
Country: USA
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here
Fueled by bad bets of the trillion-dollar variety, the 2008 financial crisis quickly snowballed into the Great Recession, sending millions of Americans into unemployment, tens of thousands of homes into foreclosure, billions lost in savings and retirement plans, and ripple effects that threatened to send the economy here and elsewhere into a Second Great Depression. Instead, federal intervention on multiple fronts ameliorated the worst effects of the financial crisis. Instead of a Great Depression, Americans and Europeans experienced (and are still experiencing) the Great Recession. The culprits responsible for the financial crisis emerged relatively unscathed financially and legally. It’s surprising then that Nicholas Jarecki (The Weight, The Outsider) made a so-called Master of the Universe the central character in his first film as a director, Arbitrage.
On the surface (and below the surface too), Arbitrage is little more than a family melodrama masquerading as a financial thriller. It’s also a shallow character study, taking the central character on a physical and emotional journey that rarely feels true or authentic.
Robert Miller (Richard Gere) has everything or practically everything a Master of the Universe could possibly want. At home, he has a loving wife, Ellen (Susan Sarandon), and a supportive family. He’s passed on his financial smarts to his daughter, Brooke (Brit Marling), the chief investment officer of his investment firm. He’s also lining up the sale of his company to an interested suitor, James Mayfield (Graydon Carter), for half a billion dollars or more. When he’s not at work or at home, he’s spending quality time with his mistress, Julie Cote (Laetitia Casta), an art dealer and gallery owner. While Julie wants what every high-maintenance mistress wants (long-term commitment), Miller’s slick verbosity keeps her in check. All seems right with Miller’s corner of the financial universe, except it’s not.
As we learn early on, Miller’s a fraud, a con artist in a super-expensive business suit. He’s lost more than $400 million dollars on an extremely bad bet, an African copper mine. With a massive hole in his accounting books, Miller turns to an old friend, Jeffrey Greenberg (Larry Pine), to temporarily cover his losses while an auditor reviews the books and hopefully gives a “pass” to his firm’s financial health. In the middle of navigating the sale with the recalcitrant Mayfield, Miller makes another, far more tragic, error in judgment. An accident leaves one person dead and Miller in cover-up mode, employing the services of his late driver’s son, Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), to help him make a getaway. The getaway is anything but clean, however. A NYC detective, Michael Bryer (Tim Roth), suspects Miller’s involvement and makes him his number one target.
Jarecki takes little, actually no, risks story wise, leaving the talented cast to carry the dramatic and emotional weight of the film and the film’s themes or subtext. That they do is more a credit to their individual talents than Jarecki’s writing or directing.
On the surface (and below the surface too), Arbitrage is little more than a family melodrama masquerading as a financial thriller. It’s also a shallow character study, taking the central character on a physical and emotional journey that rarely feels true or authentic. Jarecki makes every effort to make Miller, if not likeable, then sympathetic thanks to a series of decisions that suggest Miller’s motives aren’t always centered around self-preservation, but given when and where we meet Miller, he’s already made an egregious choice (financial fraud) that limits—perhaps even eliminates—any sympathy audiences will or can feel for his particular predicament. He’s certainly not a root-worthy protagonist. On the contrary, he’s ready-made for the fictional comeuppance Wall Street bankers and traders so richly deserved four years ago and still deserve today.
Jarecki takes little, actually no, risks story wise, leaving the talented cast to carry the dramatic and emotional weight of the film and the film’s themes or subtext. That they do is more a credit to their individual talents than Jarecki’s writing or directing. As a director, Jarecki passes the competency test, but given the wordy script, he often falls into the trap of shooting scenes in a conventional (read: dull) manner. He probably should have handed his script to a more seasoned director or a more visually oriented director. As it stands, Arbitrage is neither the financial crisis-centered drama we need nor the financial crisis-centered drama we deserve. Hopefully, however, another director will step in, if not this year, then maybe next year (or the year after that) to give us that film. Or perhaps someone already did. It was called Margin Call and it came out last year.
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