When I first saw J. C. Chandor's debut feature Margin Call (2010), I was deeply impressed by the film's script, direction and restraint, and also struck by the fact that the film seemed almost classical in its construction, as if it harkened back to the analogue era of The Birds (1963) in the precision of its shot setups and editorial construction. Along with Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011), it's the finest work I’ve seen from anyone in quite some time – all the more impressive because, aside from a long apprenticeship as an actor, still photographer and director of short films and documentaries, Margin Call is Chandor's first fullyrealized feature film, despite the fact that he tried to get an earlier project off the ground (see below), only to have financing evaporate at the last minute.

Margin Call documents the frenetic activity at a never-named brokerage firm on the night that the 2008 stock market collapse really took hold. The film is triggered by the firing of a longtime stock analyst, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci, in a typically immaculate, world-weary performance), who, in his last hours at the firm, discovers that the company is deeply over-leveraged in the derivatives market. As he is being ushered out of the building, Dale passes a flash drive with his findings on to the young Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) with a solemn warning. Sullivan quickly realizes the dimensions of the impending disaster and begins alerting a chain of superiors, who hatch a desperate plan to dump all the questionable assets in one day – the next morning – to save the firm, but at a terrible price.

Despite the dire nature of the crisis, Chandor's direction – from his own script, which he pounded out in a four-day (yes, four-day) frenzy of inspired typing and then pitched to co-producer Zachary Quinto, typos and all, to get the film off the ground – is calm, contemplative and brings the various characters in the film to the screen in three dimensions. Neither heroes nor villains for the most part, they’re just working stiffs who have overextended themselves and now find that they’re being called to account in the most terrible fashion possible.