The Laundromat (2019)

The Laundromat (2019)

6/10

Starring

Meryl Streep

Gary Oldman

Antonio Banderas

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

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.

A whistleblower who hacked the company leaked the papers to the press. This isn’t a spoiler—it’s something we all know. What makes the movie interesting is how it spins this tale, starting with a couple on their honeymoon and ending with Meryl Streep breaking the fourth wall to deliver a message (okay, maybe that part is a spoiler).

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.