I really like Margin Call.

Kevin Spacey's character in it is a worm.

Ironically, I don't think the writer and the producer were trying to make him one.

#film

Spacey plays a manager at a Wall Street firm, tasked with unsavory work like having to fire 80% of his staff one point and give orders that render his remaining staff unemployable in the industry. He does this out of a dutiful "just following orders" ethic.

Spacey remains fundamentally uncomfortable with who he is and what he does. At one point the CEO, played by Jeremy Irons, asks for his personal loyalty through the coming crisis and Spacey rebuffs him, claiming loyalty to "the firm."

At another point, he rebukes the CEO for giving him a bad pep talk, even though the CEO is being 9/10ths brutally honest. Then he admits that he will continue to work for him anyway, because he needs the money.

His conduct is repugnant and graceless.

The irony is that Spacey's character himself goes through the motions of doing everything he dislikes the CEO for doing: he gives pep talks to his crew; he tries to remind them to focus on the positive, and he appeals to a "greater good."

He just doesn't believe in it.

The CEO, by contrast, is a model of effective #leadership. He is remarkably frank about not being the smartest man in the room, he sees that his own men are cared for, and he is decisive in a crisis.

Irons's self-awareness and charisma contrast with the self-pitying Spacey.

While Spacey fumbles through a moral crisis that supposedly never turned up at any point during the past 30 years of his career, Irons lays out his thoughts:

1. It's just money, and

2. Screw the other teams.

When everyone on Wall Street is a pirate, why weep for the marooned?

Irons is relaxed, affable, and deadly when called for.

Spacey comes off as whiny, neurotic, and unfocused. His team gets a bailout package due to the CEO helping take care of them, but he shows very little gratitude.

Margin Call is ambiguous on who - if anyone - at the firm is a "good guy," but it is very clear to the viewer who it is better to be.

#mindset