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“All the Money in the World,” directed by Ridley Scott, is a long-winded but engrossing kidnapping thriller. It is the performances of Michelle Williams, who portrays Gail Harris, the mother of an abducted heir to the Getty fortune; Charlie Plummer, who portrays the heir, John Paul Getty III; and Christopher Plummer, who portrays the young man’s grandfather, John Paul Getty, who was the richest man in the world at the time of the kidnapping, that serve as the heart of the film. (Contrary to popular belief, the two Plummers are not related.)
“All the Money in the World” is a film that is both brutal and funny in the most disturbing way. Because of the way John Paul Getty views his fortune, the film has a dark tone to it. He’s so frugal that he makes Ebenezer Scrooge look generous in comparison. Naturally, he’s the real target here; he’d have to be, given that Gail is just another middle-class single woman who barely has enough money to get by, thanks to her decision to decline Getty family funds in exchange for keeping custody of her children after divorcing the old man’s drug-addicted son and divorcing his father. If grandpa would just pay the $17 million that the criminals are demanding in exchange for the release of his grandson instead of hemming and hawing and attempting to negotiate a lower price, the movie “All the Money in the World” would be ten minutes shorter.
Grandpa has reasons for haggling—not necessarily good reasons, but reasons nonetheless. At the end of the day, though, he just doesn’t seem to be quite right. The elder Getty’s behavior is so repugnant on so many levels, and so profoundly dislocated from anything resembling empathy, that money alone does not strike me as the most reasonable explanation for his actions. I’m not sure if this is the result of an unresolved complication, a fundamental flaw in the screenplay, or a new dimension that Scott and/or Plummer brought to the role during production.
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The latter, however, is more interesting than the younger Getty’s diagnosis because it implies that we are witnessing an emotionally stunted and possibly mentally ill person with access to billions of dollars allow a close blood relative to suffer solely for the sake of a few dollars. In other words, it is not the money that is the problem; it is him. To the majority of us, the stated ransom is an unfathomably large sum of money, but to someone like Getty, it’s the equivalent of the coins hidden under the sofa cushions in a bank account somewhere. When faced with a similar situation, we’d do whatever it took to save a loved one, but Pope John Paul the First has such a bloated dealmaker’s ego that he won’t even consider opening his wallet unless the terms are absolutely perfect.
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We admire Gail’s tactical restraint when confronted with her ex-father-in-icy law’s demeanor, and Williams plays it just right, allowing us to see Gail’s rage and frustration while also giving us the impression that she can keep it under control when dealing with the elder Getty and his entourage. What incredible self-discipline this woman possessed! In his delusional state, the old cheapskate pretends that this is all just a grandiose version of saving eight bucks by purchasing a statue at an estate sale. When an elderly man insists on not accepting the first offer and on saving money on everything, even a transaction as basic as sending out laundry while staying at a five-star hotel while he is in his nineties, it is possible that he will be murdered or tortured (he washes and dries his own sheets to shave a few bucks off his tab).
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Scott is relatively restrained in this film, allowing his stars to carry the film and only occasionally unleashing the full force of his directorial power, as in a couple of intricate setpieces (I won’t say which ones here because I doubt anyone outside of students of the Getty family history will know all of the details, and a couple of them are genuinely surprising). It becomes tedious during the middle section, which repeats too many similar beats too close together; if the script had been looking to combine or cut incidents, this would’ve been the section to do so; but, overall, this is a more-than competent effort.
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It’s also a nod to the past in a way. With a welcome 1970s flavor, Painfully Rich is adapted by screenwriter David Scarpa from John Pearson’s 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. By that I mean the film features recognizable human beings dealing with tense situations that feel real because they actually happened. Most of the scenes are shot in real locations, and the story is told in classically shaped scenes with beginnings, middles, and endings. Because the characters are pushed off to one side or boxed in by doorways or windows, the wide-format cinematography creates suspense by making you wonder what unseen dangers might be lurking in the rest of frame.
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With his non-science fiction films, Scott frequently blurs the line between overwhelming, almost tactile-feeling reality and pure, uncut Hollywood fantasy; you just have to go with it. An obligatory disclaimer appears at the end of the film, informing the audience that certain liberties have been taken with historical documentation. Putting Gail and her partner in misery, as well as Getty’s business manager and former CIA operative Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg, who isn’t terrible but doesn’t radiate intelligence and ultimately makes no particular impression), I’d imagine was a major motivation for many of them. The duo is frequently placed in the midst of dangerous situations that they would never be allowed to experience in real life, according to the film.
When Kevin Spacey, who had originally played Getty, was fired a month before the film’s scheduled release date after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him, the director deleted all of his footage and reshot the affected scenes with Plummer in the role, then dropped them into the finished film, the film is a testament to his incredible work ethic, which is still apparent despite his 80-year age. However, while this is not the best place to go into detail about the production, since they will be nothing more than a footnote or asterisk in two decades, it is worth mentioning because the final product is far superior to anything anyone could have anticipated, given the challenges faced and overcome by all parties involved.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Plummer received another Academy Award nomination for this role. If he does, it should not be viewed as merely an acknowledgement of good work performed under unusual and unfortunate circumstances, but rather as an acknowledgement of how precise and fearless he is in his work. There is nothing likable about the elder Getty, and there is even less that can be identified as anything other than evidence of profound, maddening dysfunction in his life. As Getty, Plummer embodies the character so completely that he transcends the confines of the film in which he appears and begins to seem emblematic of the times in which the film was released, an era in which money appears to matter more than mercy.
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