“Greed,” tells the story of self-made British billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie, whose retail empire is in crisis. For 30 years he has ruled the world of retail fashion, bringing the high street to the catwalk and the catwalk to the high street. But after a damaging public inquiry, his image is tarnished. To save his reputation, he decides to bounce back with a highly publicized and extravagant party celebrating his 60th birthday on the Greek island of Mykonos.
Steve Coogan stars as Sir Richard McCreadie, a fashion industry billionaire. To celebrate his success, he is planning a luxurious and extravagant party for his 60th birthday but is heavily annoyed when he finds out that some refugees are staying on the same beach where his party is being held.
I found “Greed” to be a very strange movie. It’s marketed as a satire, and while it’s exaggerated and outrageous in parts, it’s painfully unfunny. The film shines a light on how people are treated in sweatshops. And while I applaud writer/director Michael Winterbottom for trying to tackle this issue, I’m not sure a satire was the way to go. It’s hard to balance serious topics in a satire and it just did not work here. Overall, I felt that the clashing of tones makes the film feel clunky and heavy-handed.
I like Steve Coogan, though I know him mostly from his role as the Roman soldier in the “Night of the Museum” movies. But I always found him to be funny and enjoyed him whenever he pops up in something I’m watching. Coogan’s McCreadie is a typical billionaire character, an utter asshole through and through. And in doing a bit of research about the movie, I found that McCreadie is actually based on Topshop’s CEO, Sir Philip Green, and his antics. As an American, we don’t have Topshop and I don’t know anything about Green, so I failed to appreciate the comparison.
While Coogan is playing an unlikeable character, I’d say the more likable ones would be Nick (David Mitchell), McCreadie’s biographer, and Amanda (Dinita Gohil), his assistant. They are the ones who further intertwine the sweatshop narrative since Amanda’s aunt works in one of McCreadie’s sweatshops and Nick is shown videotaping some of the workers. Nick is the more comedic character who is painfully awkward, and while I usually enjoy that type of humor, it was another clash of tone and did not fit with the outlandish humor the film was aiming for. However, I thought both characters were interesting, Amanda especially, since they witness how horrible McCreadie is to others, especially to his workers and immigrants, but cannot do anything about it since they work for him.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Isla Fisher as McCreadie’s ex-wife and business partner and Asa Butterfield as their son, Finn. There’s not much to Fisher’s character other than the hot, trophy wife, but she and Coogan do have good chemistry together. Butterfield’s character, on the other hand, is very strange and may be a bit of a sociopath. He is insulted and teased a lot by his family, so he is holding a lot of anger towards them, particularly his father, however his attempts to act out don’t really result in anything.
The film jumps around a lot, which I thought was unnecessary. The timeline bounces between various events of McCreadie’s life starting with planning his big party, a public hearing regarding his business wrongdoings, and his younger years, with Nick’s interviews, also being tacked on, and it totally throws the pacing off. In what should be a breezy hour and forty-minute film feels much longer than it should be.
As I said before, I did not enjoy this movie, but I am glad it exposes how the fashion industry exploits sweatshop workers and if that can lead to real change, then I’m glad that this film exists. I feel that as consumers, we know sweatshops exist, but we don’t really think about the people who work there, the conditions they work in, and the people taking advantage of them since they are more than likely working in a different country.
I also think that if you hail from the U.K., you may enjoy this movie more than I did with the satire revolving around Topshop’s CEO and the film’s largely English cast. However, I can’t help but think this film would’ve worked better as a drama surrounding the treatment of sweatshop workers rather than a satire about an asshole billionaire.
In Theaters Friday, March 6th
