Livestream: The indiscreet, obscene charm of the bourgeois

For many of us, the very idea of America as a land of opportunity, and a place where dreams come true was shaped by Hollywood. So, it seems only righteous that Hollywood takes upon itself the tall order of stirring up a biopic, that is by turns a howlarious account of capitalistic excess gone horribly wrong and a morality play that traces the descent of an everyman into white collar crime. The film is based on the memoir of Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker from New York and the co-founder of a firm called Stratton Oakmont, whose fraudulent practices on Wall Street, finally catch up with him, and land him in prison.

The film features Scorsese’s signature style of voiceovers cueing in viewers on every seemingly innocuous detail, like the origin of ludes or Quaaludes, a recreational drug from the 60s and 70s, formulated by an Indian doctor, no less, that became a rarity of sorts in the 90s and turned out to be the pill of choice among Jordan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his merry gang of stockbrokers. The film pulls absolutely no punches in its depiction of what it meant to be young, rich and reckless in America in the noughties. If you thought sex, drugs and rock n’ roll were the staples of rockstars alone, wait till you watch what the stockbrokers have up their sleeves.

In a telling scene, when Jordan’s father, who is referred to as Mad Max in the film, admonishes his son for spending close to half a million dollars on ‘entertainment expenses’, and rebukes him for the nitwits he’s hired, Jordan almost earnestly tells him, “I want them (his colleagues) to live like me.” And it’s a smorgasbord of American indulgence that is laid out for audiences here. Jordan with his magnetic sense of perseverance and persuasion to sell, rises from the ranks as a small-time stockbroker to the cover of Fortune magazine, while holding on to tightly to his old-time motley crew members, each of whom who is willing to take a bullet for him.

Scorsese treats his subject with academic rigour – breaking down business fundamentals in a matter of seconds, idiot-proofing legalese and stock market jargon, so that the average viewer is not left stranded. For those in search of a no holds barred time at the movies, The Wolf is your ticket, with a message of course.