M. Lewis wrote the book, The Big Short. I had to read it three times to understand the financial products invented and sold. Any reasonable person reading the book will be really angry that no one is sent to jail over this fraudulent activity.
Any reasonable person also will be angry that the ugliest Treasury Secretary is jot in jail - the ugliest in the history of those serving for millions of dollars - it irritates any reasonable person to hear that these assholes "serve" our country - these assholes get millions to take these jobs both in salary, investments, and millions when they return to a private industry job. They don't serve, they dip their greasy fat fingers into the Treasury and make millions and his wife works for MSNBC, and claims she gets no special treatment - she really thinks we believe her fairy tale?
All this bullshit is exposed in the film.
The film has to use narrative techniques a few times obviously because the topic gets so complex that somehow interest must be held. So, narrative techniques - you will know it when it happens. Don't worry, it fits within the story perfectly. You will say oh that was good!
No one star took over the whole show - it was a beautiful team effort with nuances that indicate individual contributions.
Remember though everyone with puts that shorted the financial instruments made multiple millions of dollars. One commission check was $493 million. A lowest man on the hierarchy made $2 million dollars.
All this activity was within two years.
Two years paying insurance premiums on a product that has never been sold successfully - premiums in the millions each quarter.
This pressure defines pressure equal to WW II pressure on Commanders whose decisions resulted in the death of thousands.
A brilliant film.
Spotlight won best picture. Topic is more involved, I say, in human terms; yet, remember the suffering of the number of people who were destroyed by this fraudulent work by these financial people and by these bankers.