Count smart screenplay, female lead among 'Equity' assets

Meera Menon's high-finance drama "Equity" offers two extremely strong assets in its impressive portfolio of boardroom betrayals and dog-eat-dog survival tactics.

First, Amy Fox's crisp, thoughtful screenplay should be studied as a prime example of how to seamlessly insert exposition into dialogue so that we know who's who and what's what without characters telling each other things they already know.

Second, "Equity" shows us what a finance thriller such as "Wall Street" might look like if produced under a Hollywood dominated by middle-aged white women. The emphasis remains on the female lead; the men revolve around her and often become defined by her.

"I like money! Don't let money be a dirty word," investment banker Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) states, reinterpreting Gordon Gekko's philosophical "Greed is good" speech.

Naomi should be a corporate partner by now, but her boss informs her, "This is not your year," and we can tell from her face that no year will ever be hers. Or Erin's.

Erin (Sarah Megan Thomas) works as Naomi's assistant. She, too, has been denied a promotion. Their ambition only appears to be sidelined for a while as Naomi sets out to make a killing on a new IPO opportunity called Cachet, a privacy security service created by an overgrown adolescent occupying the body of its British creator, Ed (Samuel Roukin).

"Equity" tightens the narrative screws as mixed office and personal politics threaten to explode and destroy Naomi's career, especially after an old college chum (Alysia Reiner), now a tough U.S. prosecutor, leans on her to rat out the boys.

Fox's screenplay captures the dual nature of sex as a volatile commodity in the investment banking market. It can be an asset to a woman, or a liability to be used against her in this culture flooded with IPOs and Shakespearean double-crosses topped by a whiff of Edward Snowden-inspired paranoia.

"Equity" declines to sketch easy heroes and villains. Menon prefers a more realistic edge, and winds up with a more nuanced, relatable experience than most of her male counterparts would muster.