The ifa watch list: Advice-related movie picks for the holiday break

Financial advice isn’t a profession that is well-represented in film and television, but the cupboard isn’t entirely bare. Unfortunately, Hollywood has decided the best way to depict financial advisers, or indeed anyone in the financial services industry, is negative.

Below are some (mostly tenuously connected) financial advice TV shows and movies.

Ozark

Chicago financial adviser Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a dedicated and pragmatic financial adviser who preaches the value of living within your means and making smart, long-term investments. He is so dedicated to providing the best financial advice for his clients that he will even launder tens of millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel. Truly a sterling example for the industry.

As is often the case when working for a cartel, things go bad and his family flees to the Missouri Ozarks where he can essentially work off debt and launder even more money.

Where to watch: Netflix

Ballers

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a financial adviser to athletes. Do you really need to read more?

Ballers is also the only example on this list that actually paints anyone in finance in a positive light, with The Rock’s Spencer Strasmore giving his all as he attempts to keep his National Football League athlete clients from blowing all of their cash.

The series does stray from that central concept as the show goes on, but it is a lot of fun while it all gets out of hand.

Where to watch: Binge

Succession

Is Succession about financial advice at all? No, not really. Where it brings value for advisers though is that it lends a direct view of exactly what not to do when it comes time for succession planning.

The Roy family is a perfect example of why a clear plan, that all involved parties understand and agree to, is vital. Will most businesses changing hands be multibillion-dollar media empires? Again, no. But if you were to slip into a half-season coma, how would your business operate?

Where to watch: Binge

Silver Bears

The film choices on this list are a bit more obscure than you will find spread around the internet, evidenced by the first entry: Silver Bears.

Michael Caine plays a mob accountant that buys a Swiss bank to launder money, which then evolves into investing in a silver mine. It then devolves into a farce involving a metals baron, another bank accountant, Caine seducing said accountant’s wife (Cybill Shepherd), and a heap of fraud.

If that’s not enough to get you interested, it also features a very young Jay Leno.

Where to watch: Tubi

Margin Call

Things do not get better for the finance industry with Margin Call. Director J C Chandor’s latest film, Kraven the Hunter, hasn’t been met with much praise, but his feature debut couldn’t be more different. This “people in rooms talking” telling of the events that ultimately led to the 2008 financial crisis provides a chilling insight into the ruthless world of trading and the ethics of capitalism.

It may not have Margot Robbie explaining financial concepts in a bubble bath like The Big Short, which explores similar ground from a very different perspective, but it does have sharp dialogue, a tight script and Jeremy Irons stealing the show with some incredible speeches.

Where to watch: Only available in video on demand

The Laundromat

The theme of misdeeds that is rife across financial films doesn’t slow down in The Laundromat. Mostly overlooked when it hit Netflix in 2019, Steven Soderbergh’s satire is about a widow (Meryl Streep) that gets pulled into the world of offshore finance and shady tax havens after her husband dies in a boating accident.

When the Panama Papers hit in 2016, there was probably not many expecting Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas to portray the lawyers behind offshore financial services firm Mossack Fonseca in a movie where they break the fourth wall to explain how money laundering and shell companies work.

Even fewer would have expected it to be so entertaining.

Where to watch: Netflix

Stavisky

Directed by acclaimed French filmmaker Alain Resnais and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo in the titular role, Stavisky is perhaps the entry that is most tenuously connected to the advice profession.

Based on the life of Serge Alexandre Stavisky, a swindler and “financial consultant” in 1930s France, the film explores the real-life Stavisky Affair, which led to a riot and not one, but two prime ministers resigning.

Bonus points for the wonderful Stephen Sondheim score.

Where to watch: Kanopy

Honourable mentions

There are more than a few movies that could have made the list, headlined by the likes of The Big Short, Wall Street, Trading Places, The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room, Rogue Trader and Arbitrage. Hopefully, this list provided some options that are a bit off the beaten path.