Equity

To say that Wall Street shenanigans are well storied onscreen is both an understatement and a misdirection. Sure, there have been lots of movies (and documentaries) set in the world of high finance, and as with nearly every other human endeavor that gets depicted in film, most of them are about men. Even in movies about Big Money based on real-life events in which women played significant roles, women’s contributions tend to get glossed over or eliminated entirely; see The Big Short.

We may think we’ve got a good grip on how Wall Street operates based on the movies we’ve seen, but we’ve only gotten half the story so far. And we’ve barely seen a woman in a movie about Wall Street who isn’t a stripper or a hooker since way back in 1988’s Working Girl.

Financed and produced by a team of female Wall Street veterans, this is a labor-of-love project for its all-female creative team, including director Meera Menon, screenwriter Amy Fox and stars Alysia Reiner and Sarah Megan Thomas, who also serve as producers. Equity is fueled by women’s anger over the lack of female presence of consequence onscreen.

Meet investment banker Naomi Bishop (Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn), who is almost at the top of her game – no easy place for a woman on male-dominated Wall Street. But she’s still waiting for the promotion that will catapult her into the most rarefied realms of high finance, which may be her latest IPO project, raising investors for a billion-dollar public offering of hot new tech firm Cachet.

But it’s hitting a few snags, including one she always faces: She’s never sure if she can quite trust her longtime lover, hedge fund manager Michael Connor (James Purefoy). They work in different departments of the same bank and are supposed to keep their work “firewalled,” but he is always looking to crack Naomi’s insider’s angle for his own benefit. And now Naomi has to worry about an old friend, Samantha Ryan (Alysia Reiner), who she reconnects with. Ryan is now a federal public prosecutor investigating white-collar crime, and hints she may be poking around Naomi’s company.

Naomi’s perspective isn’t distinctly a woman’s one; she could almost be a he without changing much of anything here. But we also have Naomi’s VP assistant, Erin Manning (Sarah Megan Thomas), who faces some uniquely feminine issues, such as a pregnancy she feels she must hide in a company that is not going to look kindly on such an outside distraction.

Seeing so many women onscreen is nowhere near enough on its own to make for a compelling story, which is what is sorely lacking here. There’s a sloppy fog surrounding just what the heck the big deal about Cachet is meant to be: it’s something to do with online privacy that could maybe turn into a social network, but the movie is maddeningly vague on this.

More frustrating, however, is that Equity is dull. Instead of intrigue and suspense, we have what feels like a clunky, monotonous recitation of events: this happens, that happens, then this other thing happens.

There’s no fascination in the characters, no tension in what they’re plotting, and little sense of completion when their plans come to fruition. It just all comes to a stop.

Equity (2) Directed by Meera Menon • Starring Anna Gunn, James Purefoy, Sarah Megan Thomas • Rated R • 100 min. • At Osio Theater.