For a movie that studies the hazy gray area between right, wrong, and necessity, Margin Call spends a lot of time in darkness. First-time director J.C. Chandor’s exploration of thirty-six hours in the life of an unnamed Wall Street bank as it teeters on the verge of financial meltdown plays out the majority of its narrative in one tense, pivotal night, but even the daylight does little to chase away the shadows. They fall on everyone, sucking the light from the monochromatic color palette of crisp whites and expensive Armani blacks - and this is surely deliberate. If nobody is truly guilty in Chandor’s financial world, nobody is innocent either.
