Good movie... but ridiculous.

I am glad it was a cold, rainy day in Chicagoland, and also early in the morning,when I rented this movie on "on demand". Otherwise, I'd be kicking myself for wasting my time and money too.

Ben Affleck ... what does he know about the reality of the business world? Diddly SQUAT. So he was living beyond his means, what's new about that?

But the idea, presented near the end of the movie, that he would want to do hard manual labor for peanuts, just didn't 'wash'. The only reason that seemed to make sense is that is Ben's own background: working class.
Could his fictional family have been head over heels in debt? Sure. Would he have gone golfing in the mornings before work? Hardly. he was in SALES, not a Sr. VP. (I'm a sr. vp and I do not go golfing, but then I'm a woman, we tend to work harder then men anyway (so sue me I'm a sexist, ;)).

The idea that they could revamp ship building in the USA, WITH the union's blessing, is ha ha never happen land.

The second-to-the-top executive gets laid off by the whore he's sleeping with. Never happen. That guy would have gotten a BIG check to leave that job. He wouldn't have cared about the people under him, except 'in passing'. Blaming his high flying life on his wife, is also bogus. If he had been cheating on her for a long time, yeah, she might have tried to fill the void in her heart with $17000 desks, but it still would have been HIS fault for not being a LEader of his family.

The entire premise was bogus. A 37-year-old SALES guy worried about 20-somethings taking his job, nada da nada as heminway twere wont ta say.

So did they learn their lesson? All of them? No, apparently the 50-something was mentally a 20-something who couldn't figure out how to survive after being booted from his job. That's how the 20-30 somethings 'see' 50 somethings -- as imcompetent. As a 60-something having been working in technology since the age of 12, I have news for you 20-30 somethings. We have lived 30-40 years longer than YOU have and the recession of a couple years ago is about the 5th such recession we've lived through not the first such. We learned how to survive a long time ago. We don't sit in our car and take the easy way out. The guy was an adult. If he couldn't pay tuition for his daughter to go to Brown, hey that's what community college is for. Get over it. I never went to college and yet I made double what the Ben character makes, and more importantly I BANK 3/4's of my pay, drive a 11 year old dented up truck and get to work from home, to boot. Also, I get constant job offers. If a person is really good at what they do, it doesn't matter their age. Also, until last fall I travelled internationally about 70% of the time. It was not a 'strain' on me, so baloney to THAT idea. Someone looks 'terrible' and he's in his 50s? No. He looked his AGE. Hey people it's like buying a steak and not knowing that it used to be part of a living animal. Get back into reality. You don't stay 10 18 25 37 52 forever, you grow and change and you never need to 'step aside' for the recent college graduated (particularly these days when many of those kids are hugely fat with the attention span of a flea, no work ethic, no ethics at all

Well, time for my jog in the local forest preserve, even though it looks like it will be raining in a minute. That's why I always wear my bathing suit under my t-shirt and shorts. Water is just water.
Don't waste your money on this movie, unless it's a rainy, gloomy early morning.

Life is a journey not a destination. Fear nothing.

What savings?....We were living on my ebay sales, my wifes salary, and garage sales... this movie is realistic to the hilt.

[deleted]

His father let's him have it for overspending and lists all the things he bought that were unnecessary.

No so ridiculous. Though the movie didn't touch on this (I wish it had), one of the biggest expenses that comes with being unemployed is a HUGE increase in health insurance costs, especially if some of the family have health problems.
It can all tumble down so quickly.

Not sure how off the subject this thread has gotten, but I just wanted to say that the OP is basically right.

If the film had focused on middle class people it would have had more punch. Having a guy who made $160,000 a year and who lived in a house worth a minimum of $850,000 (after the major market crash) and who talked to working class people as if he was totally superior to them may not have been the most effective idea to convey the message.

If you speak with any broker, they will tell you that many of their clients who made much more money than most people end up spending far more and don't save. This is because they have the mentality that they are rich so they don't have to worry about money. I've seen this myself from co-workers who spent far more than they earned. One day in private one of them told me that if he was fired, he would be about two months away from not being able to pay any of his bills including the mortgage. All his savings was spent traveling, buying gifts for relatives and pretty much showing off.

Also, people who make a lot more money live in areas where expenses are much higher too. Besides the price of real estate, the property taxes themselves can be so high in some parts of the US they are larger than many people elsewhere pay for their mortgage each month. Even though if you drive through these areas they homes and surroundings might not appear to be any different from other areas in the country which cost a fraction for the same thing.

Actually this did happen to me. I had lots of money saved up too. I lived frugal. This was in 2005. 18 months later, I sold everything I had, and had to take a job teaching english in Korea at one fifth my former salary. I had been an IT consultant - I designed manufacturing systems at a dozen fortune 500 firms (and nearly as many small firms as well, and in other environments beside manufacturing, such as telecom, health care, pharamceuticals, higher ed, etc...). I was good at my craft. It used to take only three phone calls for me to get a new consulting gig. During the down time of 1991, a similar thing happened. I barely survived. It took one year to get a new full time gig. At one point, I had a temporary gig that paid me when I was down to $58. I used the bounty of the Clinton years to enhance my academic credentials. That left me with hefty college loan debt. At first, that didn't hurt me. Later it did.

In 2005 and 2006, I sent out 970 resumes. I got 3 returned contacts: one in Ireland, one by an Indian firm in central Pa., and one by a "recruiter" in Nigeria. I attempted working at fast food, and retail, but they didn't want someone in those roles with a doctorate from a tier one university, when they could hire hispanics who saw those roles as gainful employment.

What ruined thing for me was: I turned 45 in 2005 - and insurance actuarial tables say I'm a bad bet, even though I work out 4 times a week, lift weights and can run three miles in 30 minutes, still; H1B visas flooded the markets I sold my talents in... and demand was already collapsing by the last half of 2005 so firms weren't investing in new IT development. Thank you Republican party for staunchly standing by a destructive health insurance system, raising H1B visas every time the market started to tighten up (and I could literally feel this happening), and supply side economic policies in a demand deficient environment. f

For three years in Korea I kept up on all my debt obligations, but after the recession kicked in, Korea's currency fell 40%, and then I had to declare bankruptcy, but nicely, I still owe on my college loans. You cannot fathom this kind of mess.

What happened in this movie is very very very very real. I mean spot on. Let me tell you. Though I didn't have the access to such great outplacement facilities. What they tell you in outplacement facilities is exactly what is going on in this film. And everything else is the same. The hope on a slender job lead that leads to nothing. The wish to be dead, the desire to be dead, the sense of betrayal, the hopelessness of not even being able to earn a stick of gum, the shame, the humiliation, the absurdity of being good at your craft and not being able to find work, the fact that none of the people around you notice any change at all while you are losing everything and you life is falling apart right before your very eyes.

The ruining of lives... My life was destroyed. In fact, if I had more moral courage, I would have killed myself, but I am, in fact, a coward that way. After returning from Korea, I took manual labor jobs, one, such as one of the characters did here, it was back breaking hard, but I was happy for the employement as I love to work but I eventually had to let it go in favor of something else as I feared it was starting to giving me signs of a hyrnia like symptoms and I have no health insurance, and there were tons of other bangs and bruises - this is the kind of work I did while in college and just after college to make some scratch - I found out the hard way, I'm not that young anymore despite the fact I work out. Right now, I work at a call center. Two weeks ago, they announced that our pay was dropped from $10 an hour to minimum wage ($7.25). I have a Law Degree now, so I'm also studying for the bar, while I work, while I look for gainful employment. This is just a huge Godawfulmess.

This film is spot on realistic in the effects, especially moral and emotional, of employment loss. The inputs, the cause and effect, might be a little off - but this is a motion picture, an art form that has to go over the top, and hit people on the head, in order to illustrate the point: the guy goes from driving a Porsche and living in a McMansion, to driving an old used chevy and living with his parents (he had lots of family support I don't have: family, parents, brother-in-law, etc... - in my family, My parents lost all their money to stock market, and live slenderly off of social security, my other family members just as soon wish I disappear, and even though I'm the only educated member of my family, they treat me like I'm a cashier at a truck stop).

I found this movie fascinating to watch, because if was exactly a repeat of the horrors I experienced. Seven years later, and my life is still miserable. I pluck onward - like being born, there isn't any other choice. I see horrible things happening to people around me everyday, such as ALL the workers losing 30% of their salary where I work - most of those people don't have my training or experience. I believe something decent can still happen to me. Though I'm 52, I look like I might still be in my late 30s - so it's possible that by the time an interested company finds out my real age, it will be too late for them to not hire me.

I'm sorry my friend. This movie doesn't replicate my experience perfectly, but it is a movie ... that means its an abstraction from reality, abstracted to make a point. In reality, my experience is much, much worse than this movie. One year or so later, two of the guys still live, and find that they have hit their floor. I still haven't found my floor yet... seven years hence. Welcome to America, have a nice day.