‘Trader’ Review: A Stunning And Tense One-Woman Show
Mary Beth McAndrews
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From Wall Street to The Big Short, filmmakers often focus on the very masculine side of the finance world. Men scream into phones and snort cocaine with reckless abandon while dressed in expensive clothes in shiny offices. But with his new film Trader, writer and director Corey Stanton pushes back against that norm with a one-woman show set in a dank basement that will have your heart (and some bile) in your throat.
Kimberly-Sue Murray plays the titular Trader, a nameless woman who never reveals her true identity. Instead, she sits in her dirty basement apartment adopting different accents, names, and backstories to scam unsuspecting victims out of money. It almost feels like an audio drama as Murray uses her voice to convince both her prey and the viewer that this story is her real back story. With a short haircut, no make-up, and a basic wardrobe, the Trader is a blank canvas, a series of characters rather than a unified being.
Then, she discovers day trading. She teaches herself the ins and outs of the stock market and begins clawing her way to the top. When older men tell her she can’t, she does whatever’s necessary to prove them wrong. This culminates in a stomach-churning ending that had me staring at the wall for a good five minutes as the credits rolled.
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Stanton, who else edited the film, creates high-octane, anxiety-inducing chaos in just one apartment with one woman and a cellphone on par with the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems and Max’s hidden gem Industry. Between Murray’s own chaotic energy, Stanton’s editing, his score (yes, he composed the score, too), and a slew of clever graphics, the stakes of the film couldn’t feel higher.
Murray is stunning as the film’s sole on-screen character. Since the Trader never reveals her true self, Murray is able to play, creatively keeping the audience engaged in such a small production. You never know her next move, what lie she’s going to tell next, and whose life she’s going to put on the line for her success. Murray create a sociopathic female character the likes of which are worshipped on Twitter when played by a sad white guy (looking at you, Kendall Roy). She is deplorable and you never, ever like her. And yet she is still fascinating.
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The film’s downfall is stretching its script a bit thin to where prolonged dance sequences seem more like repetitive filler than telling us anything important about the Trader. The limited information we’re given is crucial to creating her sociopathy, but it also limits how far Stanton can take the story. He pushes the bounds an impressive amount, you can just see where those bounds are about the break.
Trader is another example of an impressive single-location, single-actor horror film that harnesses creative uses of sound, setting, and graphics to help shape its story. It’s an impressive feat to create such a stressful experience with one person in a small space for such a sustained amount of time, and Stanton accomplishes it well. Thanks to a daring script, tight editing, and a complex performance from Murray, Trader is a must-see hidden gem of 2023.
Summary
Thanks to a daring script, tight editing, and a complex performance from Murray, Trader is a must-see hidden gem of 2023.
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