The Laundromat can
feel strange at first. You have to hold your breath to get through the first
five minutes before realizing you’re watching a drama/documentary. It’s a mix
of comedy and drama that tells the story of the infamous Panama Papers, which
exposed how many wealthy individuals hid their money.
The movie shows
the illegitimate ways people tried to stash their wealth in shell companies
around the world, especially in tax havens. Everything they did was technically
legal, but the crime lay in where the money came from and where it was going.
While everyone with money was implicated, as long as their source of income and
spending were clean, no crime was committed.
A passion
project of Steven Soderbergh, the movie is based on the book Secrecy
World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the
Global Elite by Jake Bernstein. The film also highlights the various ways
people got involved in these schemes, showing that those hiding their money
from taxes came from all over the world. It also reveals how greed consumed
some of the people involved, making it only a matter of time before their
actions were exposed.
When tragedy
strikes the couple, Ellen (Meryl Streep) receives almost nothing from the
insurance company after her husband’s death. As it turns out, the boat company
had insured itself with a fraudulent insurance company—one that exists when
you’re paying premiums but disappears when you file a claim. Get ready for a
wild goose chase as Ellen discovers the company she’s looking for doesn’t
exist.
Ellen had her
eye on an apartment facing the place where she first met her husband. She was
showing it off to her daughter and granddaughter when it was bought out from
under her by some Russians. Her decision to investigate these people leads her
to uncover that neither they nor the insurance company supposed to cover the
accident actually exist.
What she does
with this information and the challenges she faces—whether real or
fictional—are something you’ll have to catch on Netflix to find out.
The movie downside is that it struggles with an uneven tone, awkwardly bouncing between dark comedy and serious financial exposé, which dulls its impact. Its fragmented narrative, packed with disconnected vignettes, feels unfocused and makes it hard to get truly invested. Even with a solid cast, some performances feel wasted, and the script relies too much on exposition instead of pulling the audience in through storytelling. The attempt to break down the Panama Papers scandal ends up feeling more preachy than insightful.
The movie is not spectacular, I recommend for a boring day with nothing else to watch.
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