Chapter Two:
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
By Brett Ballard-Beach
June 23, 2011
To return at the end here to the only slightly star-crossed lovers at the story’s center, I feel the need to comment briefly (spoilers next paragraph) on the romance and then single out a particular moment involving Mulligan. I enjoy LaBeouf and although I don’t find him particularly compelling, he is able to ramp up from quiet desperation to surface desperation in an affecting way, as he does often here, or say, at the climax of Eagle Eye. I am also not sure I ever bought into the relationship between Winnie and Jake the way I was meant to.
Although their break-up scene is affecting, their reconciliation at the climax (abetted by a presumably reformed father Gekko) doesn’t work, nor does a too sentimental for words closing credits sequence. But what I carry away from the climax is Mulligan’s visage. As she stands frozen on the steps leading up to her building, almost bullied by passive-aggressive kindness by the two men in her life, she maintains a composure that is somehow both moving and unsettling. For what must be at least 20 seconds, but feels like forever, the camera stays trained on her, and her features offer no definitive clue. There is a look of desperation, yes, but also, I would argue, of resolve, of anger, of steely determination, of a mind racing, of odds being placed, of the sort of cold calculation a businessman makes as the closing bell fast approaches. It’s a fleeting, unexpected and unforgettable moment that, were the movie to cut off there, would pull the ground out from under our feet, would make us mutter, “well, like father, like daughter.”
Next time: Combined stats on two first installments based on the same author’s books: 19 Oscar nominations, 7 wins, nearly $140 million grossed. The sequels: 0 nominations, 0 wins, $16 million grossed. 20 years and 15 years later, respectively. How do Texasville and The Evening Star, the cinematic chapter twos of author Larry McMurtry, stand up?
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