Craig Gillespie

In Dumb Money (2023), America Ferrera stands in a hospital corridor, masked, checking a share price on her phone. Gillespie lets her stay silent, and we can see how much she needs that number to rise. We were moved by her anxious attention to the screen, because he briefly stopped explaining the story and trusted the person living it. His sympathy is convincing here; elsewhere, his determination to keep things lively gets in the way.

Lars and the Real Girl (2007) established his ability to treat an unconventional premise with sincerity. He went on to Million Dollar Arm (2014) and The Finest Hours (2016), before I, Tonya (2017) gave his mixture of comedy and hurt a sharper purpose. That film made us think about who gets laughed at and why. In Cruella (2021), too, he found room for a damaged woman to be funny without first becoming agreeable.

The collaborators on Dumb Money make a fair case for his methods. Cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis gives rich and poor the same flat winter light, while production designer Scott Kuzio lets the size and furnishing of their homes show the difference. Editor Kirk Baxter keeps the separate stories moving at the pace of the changing share price. But Gillespie's repeated cuts to memes become tiresome, and composer Will Bates's score struggles to be heard beneath pop songs insisting on excitement. The film is easy company, but its good cast cannot make up for how little it asks about the small investors' gamble.

Supergirl (2026) exposes the limits more plainly. Milly Alcock's sour, tired Kara ought to suit the director who made I, Tonya, and the small revenge story gives him no need to bury her in plot. Yet Ana Nogueira's script keeps spelling things out, and Gillespie cannot find the wit that would make the journey worth following. Alcock makes the character believable, but too much of the dialogue leaves her explaining an attitude she could simply have shown us. For a better introduction, start with I, Tonya, where he gives us a reason to question our laughter.