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Rumblings about GameStop's stock started in the thick of the pandemic, when everyone was home, bored, and trying to find ways to stay distracted. Craig Gillespie's "Dumb Money" is a snapshot of a very strange moment in time, when the stock price continued to rise and no one really could pinpoint what was exactly happening. "Dumb Money" is effective in boiling down the trajectory of these events, while never being a great movie.

The inescapable issue with "Dumb Money" is that it feels like a rushed movie that is desperate to capitalize on a recent piece of history. Would the GameStop stock story have taken over if it weren't for COVID-19 and a frantic need for distraction? "Dumb Money" never makes the case that this story could stand on its own.

Paul Dano stars as Keith Gill, an everyday finance guy who goes to work and comes home to his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and their new baby. Keith spends his nights in his basement, dressed in a cat t-shirt and red band around his head, going by the name Roaring Kitty and conducting live streams about stocks. He tells his followers to keep an eye on GameStop, which he has sunk a good chunk of change into. Keith never really presented sound advice to his followers as to why they should invest in GameStop, he just had a gut feeling it was worth it. It was enough to convince others to buy stock, which ultimately drove the price up, much to Wall Street's chagrin.

"Dumb Money" is an ensemble piece without much rhythm as it bops along from person to person. In Keith's orbit is his brother Kevin (Pete Davidson), a DoorDash driver without much ambition, but the movie also cuts back-and-forth between some characters who bought into the stock on Keith's advice: Jenny (America Ferrera), Marcus (Anthony Ramos), and Harmony (Talia Ryder, who was tremendous in 2020's "Never Rarely Sometimes Always") all become obsessed with Keith's next move regarding buying or selling when the stock continues to climb. Nick Offerman, Seth Rogen, and Vincent D'Onofrio co-star as hedge fund managers who try to fight back against the everyday people driving up the price of GameStop's stock.

The screenplay by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, based on Ben Mezrich's book "The Antisocial Network," never gets its arms entirely around the story. Going from person-to-person has its moments of tension, especially when their choices become buy or sell, but they feel like thin constructs in the overall story.

"Dumb Money" has been easily compared to Adam McKay's "The Big Short," but thankfully doesn't possess any of that movie's grating smugness (though it does try a bit too hard to make itself seem cool, with repeated uses of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion on the soundtrack). "Dumb Money" does a good job explaining what happened in those early days of 2021, when life felt so deeply uncertain. It was an interesting moment, but not every interesting moment earns a feature-length movie.