Equity – Film Review by Frank L.

Directed by Meera Menon
Writers: Amy Fox (screenplay), Sarah Megan Thomas (story by)
Stars: Anna Gunn, James Purefoy, Sarah Megan Thomas

The subject matter of this story is Wall Street, in particular the insanely lucrative activity of bringing some innovative new media company to the stock market. This is done by offering shares to the investing public by an I.P.O. (initial public offering). An investment bank is needed to do this. Get it right i.e. the fixing of the maximum offer price at which the investing institutions will buy, there is loads of money to be made. Too high or too low a price and the IPO is not a success. Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) is a specialist in this activity. She has brought nine companies to the market however her last one she priced the shares too low which meant in the jargon of the finance industry “money was left on the table”. There is now a question mark over her skills. She has a suitably ambitious assistant Erin Manning (Sarah Megan Thomas) who believes she is entitled to a pay rise.

Naomi also happens upon an old acquaintance Samantha (Alysia Reynier ) now working for the government as a lawyer in relation to the financial industry. When Naomi enquires does she have a file on her institution, Samantha replies sweetly that they have a file on all institutions.  These three women are different from each other in that Naomi is early forties and single, Erin is partnered and in her early thirties and Samantha is married to a woman and has two cute kids.

Thomas, Reynier and one Amy Fox wrote the script. The perspective of the action is written therefore from that of women, serious women. The action is centred on Naomi’s tenth IPO of a company called Cachet. There are naturally men in the story – Naomi’s boss, Naomi’s long-standing man friend, and the entrepreneur who created Cachet. However their parts are subsidiary to those of the three women who is each an anti-heroine. It is the interplay of the forces and pressures on each of them in the Wall Street world of men as the Cachet IPO proceeds, which drives the story.

Anna Gunn gives a particularly measured performance as Naomi as she moves from the brittle interior of her Wall Street work place to the expensive but dull décor of her well-appointed spacious apartment. She is even convincing as she trains, Katie Taylor-esque, with a punch bag. This world of smart cocktails in even smarter Wall Street watering holes and restaurants all holds together as Cachet is brought to the market which is not a simple business. At times the intrigues and the deceits coupled with the mysteries of Wall Street financial practices can be a little hard to follow but the story keeps moving to the critical moment of the fixing of the price.

The strength of the film is that it is about three women of ability and ambition in the testosterone world of Wall Street. It also throws some light on the opaque world of IPOs and Wall Street. Issues which effect directly or indirectly all our lives. It is therefore worth seeing as it does so from the almost never acknowledged point of view of the intelligent and ambitious woman. Meera Menon and the three co-writers may, in Equity, have cracked a glass ceiling of some considerable durability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzdFmVYdpMQ