Premise: A lawyer takes on the job to figure out how to compensate the families of the victims of 9/11.
The elephant in the room is that this movie is Spotlight 2. It's set in Boston. It stars Michael Keaton with Stanley Tucci in a prominent supporting role. It takes place during and after Spotlight. It's a thoughtful drama about institutions failing people. There is no way for a person to watch both movies and not jump to comparisons. So, I'll get that out of the way. Spotlight is better, but Spotlight is one of my favorite movies. Worth will just have to "settle" for being a great movie. OK. Spotlight will not be mentioned again as a comparison point (hopefully).
I was curious about this movie ever since I heard about it out of 2020 Sundance. It sounded like the exact kind of wonky "people doing their damn jobs" drama that I've come to love over the last few years. The premise is so damn intriguing, coming at 9/11 from an angle I've never seen before. The idea is that the 9/11 attacks left a lot of companies exposed. Everything from the airlines to the city governments to the companies with offices in the World Trade Center were exposed to lawsuits from the families of the victims. There was a very real possibility that litigation from this could've crippled the US economy (and "let the terrorists win"). The best solution available was to set up a fund with the US government to pay the families who in turn would agree not to sue any of the companies tied to this. The question is, how much are the families owed?
It's an impossible question to answer, and Worth is all about Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) figuring it out and getting at least 80% of the families to buy in. There's a new complication around every corner. The movie doesn't have to work hard at all to set high stakes. They are baked in. Keaton is excellent following the expected story arc. He starts off believing that the best thing he can do is stay unemotional about the process with a formula to determine everyone's payout. Over time, he realizes that there are too many special scenarios and they have to look at each case separately. The movie oversimplifies that, but that's for the best. I don't need to hear 5000 different scenarios. I'm OK using a handful of people to represent the larger whole.
The movie is pretty packed with great performances beyond Keaton too. This is probably Amy Ryan's best dramatic role since her Oscar nominated work in Gone Baby Gone, yet it's a polar opposite kind of performance. Stanley Tucci is an ideal counter philosophically for Keaton's character. Similarly reasonable but wearing his heart on his sleeve. Laura Bernanti is perhaps a little broad, but she gets such a great conflict as the wife of a firefighter who was keeping a big secret from her. And there's Tate Donovan as a slimy lawyer who would've been played by Billy Crudup if not for that movie I said I wouldn't mention.
It's a bummer that this movie got released when it did. An early September release sure feels like Netflix is dumping the movie rather than rolling it out for end-of-the-year awards. I'd love to be wrong. I doubt I'll find 10 better or more prestigious movies this year than Worth. But this release sure isn't a great sign. I loved the movie. The only thing working against it, as I said before, is that it's not as good as Spotlight. Hard to hold that against it.
(Note: In hindsight, I understand that Worth got this release due to the 9/11 collection, but that still doesn't make it a good release time for awards potential)
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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