Not since the Gilded Age of the 1890s has the power and affluence of ill-gotten wealth been so flaunted. The new film by British director Michael Winterbottom, Greed, addresses the gauche sordidness of it all through the character of Sir Richard McCreadie (Steve Coogan), a ready-to-wear mogul that made his fortune on the backs of ill-paid, third-world labor.
The story’s framework is built around the countdown to McCreadie’s 60th birthday bash, a blowout party at his villa on Mykonos, Greece. “You can’t buy a view like this,” he mentions, gazing from his balcony at the sun-splashed Mediterranean Sea. “Oh, I did buy it,” he reminds himself. Obstructing the view are those annoying Syrian refugees camped on the beach with nowhere to go.
McCreadie’s daughter’s stupid reality TV show, “The Young, The Rich & The Beautiful,” uses the refugees as backdrop. Eventually, McCreadie dresses them up as Roman slaves and forces them to complete construction of an amphitheater on his property. Ancient Rome is the theme of his birthday party and the occasion is to be capped by a gladiatorial reenactment. McCreadie rents a lion, and he’s displeased with the animal’s “lack of pep.” He suggests feeding it cocaine. At the end, someone does just that with dangerous consequences.
Fiddling merrily while the world burns, McCreadie triggered a string of bankruptcies while continuing to amass his billions through cunning shell games and manipulation of tax codes in several nations. Greed is marketed as a comedy, but all of the laugh-out-loud moments are in the trailer. The dry satire is almost too tragic to be funny, even when McCreadie unleashes hilarious stingers at friends and foes alike. Greed accurately assesses the glib pathology of the most vicious elements of the 1%.
Winterbottom is a prolific and diverse filmmaker with historical dramas and documentaries on his resume. He brings documentary elements into Greed through the character of Nick (David Mitchell), a bumbling, penurious writer hired by McCreadie’s razor-mouthed Mum (Sophie Cookson) to pen her son’s biography. He interviews old associates in talking-head segments that trigger flashbacks of McCreadie’s adolescence and rise from the London rag trade through high street to glamorous runway shows. He was a card shark in boarding school, an inveterate gambler girded by overwrought self-confidence. With his keen eye and ear for pop culture, Winterbottom scores the flashbacks with era-appropriate British rock.
McCreadie’s rise coincided with the age of Thatcher and Reagan as the benefits of a market economy descended into the spiritual and ethical poverty of a market society. Testifying before a parliamentary committee about his tax avoidance, he shoots back, “Look at Apple, Amazon and Google.” For good measure, he adds Bono, whom he accuses of flouncing around in funny glasses, talking about poverty while incorporating U2 as an offshore corporation.
Well, at least Bono doesn’t squeeze the blood from workers in Sri Lankan sweatshops, where McCreadie (and real-life counterparts) subcontracts the manufacture of cheap, fashionable clothing. Greed spells out the driving impulses of the world economy in simple terms. “Money makes money,” explains McCreadie’s ex-wife Samantha (Isla Fisher). “If people think you have money, they’ll give you more.”
