The Wolf of Wall Street Is Enraging Moviegoers, Thrilling Bankers, And Making ... - Vanity Fair

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

The Wolf of Wall Street is doing great—it led the holiday box office^[1] with $10 million on Christmas Day!

The Wolf of Wall Street is doing terribly—it earned a C rating on CinemaScore^[2] , meaning audiences liked it less than everything else currently in theaters, including Walking With Dinosaurs.

Whatever it is that The Wolf of Wall Street is actually doing, it's succeeding in its main goal over a crowded holiday period—getting people to talk about it. The gonzo and great^[3] new film from Martin Scorsese does nearly everything possible to get your attention, showing Leonardo DiCaprio blowing cocaine into the rear end of a prostitute, receiving oral sex while driving a Ferrari, and crashing a helicopter into the lawn of his massive estate, all in the first ten minutes of the movie. The fact that all this bad behavior doesn't necessarily come along with tough punishment in the end—the real "wolf of Wall Street," Jordan Belfort, served 22 months in prison and is now a motivational speaker—makes the movie hard for some to embrace. Over at The Wire^[4] , Esther Zuckerman called it "The Douchebag's Handbook" and said she had "a hard time seeing any indictment of Belfort's lifestyle and boiler room culture in the movie." And down on Wall Street, it sounds like they agree! Brave Business Insider staffer Steven Perlberg saw the movie near the Goldman Sachs building^[5] and reported cheers from the audience at all the wrong moments—"When Belfort — a drug addict who later attempts to remain sober — rips up a couch cushion to get to his secret coke stash, there were cheers."

A movie beloved by Wall Streeters and critics^[6] and hated by the average Americans who vote in CinemaScore sounds like the perfect cultural catalyst to keep us busy now that we've survived another War of Christmas. With the Golden Globe awards coming up on January 12, we'll get to see Leonardo DiCaprio walk the red carpet and defend himself before all the youngsters he's single-handedly turned into greedy stockbrokers. With the movie continuing to do well in theaters, we'll watch CNN reporters standing in movie theaters, talking to the brainwashed masses now hungry for their own Ferrari to crash. Academy members will continue heckling Martin Scorsese^[7] . Critics will continue tearing each other apart^[8] in some crazy belief that it's possible to like Wolf of Wall Street or American Hustle, but not both. Jordan Belfort will have shaped the nation in his own anarchic image. The War of Wall Street has only begun.

References

1. ^{^} led the holiday box office (www.vanityfair.com)


2. ^{^} C rating on CinemaScore (www.vanityfair.com)


3. ^{^} great (www.vanityfair.com)


4. ^{^} The Wire (www.vanityfair.com)


5. ^{^} saw the movie near the Goldman Sachs building (www.vanityfair.com)


6. ^{^} critics (www.vanityfair.com)


7. ^{^} continue heckling Martin Scorsese (www.vanityfair.com)


8. ^{^} continue tearing each other apart (www.vanityfair.com)