Diamond Hands for Dumb Money 💎🙌

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an early screening of Dumb Money this week: Craig Gillespie's 2023 comedy-drama inspired by the 2021 GameStop Wall Street takeover.

In case this flew under your radar, at the height of the pandemic Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty) led a movement of small-time investors who went all in on GameStop stock. Gill would regularly share his market analysis with his YouTube followers and Redditors on r/WallStreetBets leading to a Wall Street squeeze that put hedge funds at risk of losing it all.

Dumb Moneys All-star cast

The film has an impressive line-up including Paul Dano, Shailene Woodley, Seth Rogan, Pete Davidson, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Sebastion Stan and many more. Dumb Money follows this collective cast of hopeful shareholders, based on real-life investors, as they attempt to take on the billionaires of Wall Street. From beginning to end Dumb Money had the audience rooting for the little guys as their investments become less about financial success and more about sticking it to the man.

The Reddit community r/WallStreetBets played a pivotal role in the real life, and thus on-screen, outcome. These small-scale retail investors, dubbed "Dumb Money" by Wall Street elites, banded together encouraging each other to 'hodl' their stocks during the squeeze, embracing the term 'Diamond Hands' to signal their commitment to holding their investments.

Initially, I was concerned about how the backdrop of the pandemic would be handled, as we're already all too familiar with cliched Hollywood portrayals. However, Dumb Money navigated it with ease. The pandemic wasn't used as a crutch for comedic relief and I truly appreciated that the "You're on mute" moments were kept to a minimum.

I was pleasantly surprised by how accurately Dumb Money captured the world of streaming and content creation from Gil's perspective. Watching him go live on YouTube to update his followers on investment plans actually felt authentic to the process. From replicating Roaring Kitty's real-life setup, complete with his Secretlab chair and HyperX microphone, to capturing the true essence of the trolls in chat.

Paul Dano as Gil aka Roaring Kitty

Overall Dumb Money took us on a stock market rollercoaster with plenty of laughs in between. There's no doubt when Dumb Money hits Australian cinemas on October 23 you'll find yourself googling  "How to enter the stock market?" and "What is the GameStop stock price?".

Thanks to Roadshow for the invitation to Dumb Money. All opinions are my own.