The first-ever female-driven Wall Street movie debuts this week
Nearly two years ago, actresses Alysia Reiner (“Orange Is The New Black”) and Sarah Megan Thomas (“Backwards”) launched a production company, Broad Street Pictures, to produce films with strong-female roles.
Their first film is “Equity,” the first-ever female-driven Wall Street movie. Written, produced, directed and starred in by women, “Equity” explores the intersection of gender and office politics in the world of high finance.
The movie’s plot follows a senior-level investment banker named Naomi Bishop, played by “Breaking Bad” star Anna Gunn.
According to a movie description, after being passed up for a promotion “she fights for the opportunity to take a start-up public, hoping this promising IPO will secure her a place at the firm’s highest level. But when an employee at the start-up raises questions about a possible crack in the company’s walls, Naomi must decide whether to investigate rumors that may compromise the deal, or push forward with the confidence her superiors expect. Soon Naomi finds herself tangled in a web of deception and office politics and begins to question if there is anyone she can trust.”
There isn’t just one strong female lead, either. Reiner plays a prosecutor focused on white collar crime in the US Attorney’s Office, while Sarah Megan Thomas plays a vice president at the bank. Women also appear in other roles including a doctor, a coder and a defense attorney.
For the movie, Reiner and Thomas made it a point to employ women both in front of and behind the camera.
“There are so many panels about changing things for women. And I feel like let’s just make change,” Reiner told Yahoo Finance.
She continued: “Let’s set a mandate that we we are going to hire more women than men. We’re going to let these women do what they do so well and we’re going to actually pay these women more than the men. And that was so exciting and empowering. And yes, on this, we sort of did our own roadshow— We learned to be our own IPO.”
The movie is directed by Nora Ephron Prize-winning director, Meera Menon. The screenplay was produced by Sundance writer by Amy Fox. The story was written by Fox, Reiner and Thomas.
It’s also based off conversations with numerous Wall Street executives, including the late Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase. They also spoke with top female executives including Barbara Byrne, Alexandra Lebenthal, and Elaine La Roche.
“It’s amazing when a woman’s story has not been told and you give her the opportunity — the openness with which people came to us and then additionally the openness that they wanted to invest in it because we were telling their story,” Reiner told Yahoo Finance.
The movie touches upon issues such as promotions and motherhood.
“Some of the main issues we deal with in the film are the stories we heard over and over and over again — The way you have to deal with your male client, the way you get to a certain level of your career and you’re sort of edged out in a multitude of ways … I think the issue of pregnancy and motherhood in the workplace is a huge issue we wanted to touched on,” Reiner said.
The film first debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, with Sony Pictures (SNE) acquiring the worldwide rights on the eve of its premiere.
“Equity” opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on July 29.
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Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance.
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