Lagerlout’s review published on Letterboxd:
I can't fathom ever being truly wealthy. The only time I ever feel marginally comfortable is when I get my tax return back during the middle of the year and marvel at what it feels like to have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank...before I have to spend it on all the things I've been saving it for since about February. But it's okay, I'm not starving, I can splurge occasionally on a nice dress or a fancy dinner with my boyfriend or maybe even, if I'm really clever, a couple of nights out of the city at a nice, but affordable destination. I understand the value of working for what you get and to appreciate the things you do have.
I cannot even begin to imagine the life of the grotesquely wealthy Siegels. It's just unfathomable to me that one family can have so much money. There are so many moments that made me cringe and clutch my chest in disgust at this sad, loaded family. The poor lives of their nannies and maids. Who you know aren't getting paid very well at all, one of whom lives out in the children's old cubby house and heartbreakingly talks about how she loves the space she has been given. How the family has so many pets that no one notices when a lizard of theirs dies from hunger and dehydration. The way they don't even toilet train their dogs, they leave it for the maids to clean up, all part of the job. The way they have so many children, like accessories and leave it to their help to raise. And you just know they will be raised as horribly spoilt and not well adjusted humans. I mean, look at their Christmas "stocking stuffers". I'm gagging at the thought.
But you can't help but feel sorry for this over-privileged bunch. They are what America has made them. They are respected for their obscene wealth, they are held up as examples. If you work hard and use dodgy bank loans and basically collapse what was once the most robust economy in the world, then you will be a hero. You will have it all. Where does that mentality come from? How can that still be the case? I know we all swore allegiance to capitalism almighty when we bought our first Happy Meal, but surely we have realised that the dollar is not everything. We have such discrepancies in the very rich and everyone else. And you can't help but feel vindicated when it all starts going wrong for them.
The saddest part is, you know they aren't really going to suffer. They will survive, they will still have their Rolls Royce's and their first class air travel and their fifteen bathroomed houses and their army of maids and nannies. Their "suffering" and "poverty" is anyone else's dream. It's just so outrageous, you can't look away.