Worth

A legal film set in America. Ken Feinberg is a compensation lawyer. His speciality is clear: calculating what a loss is worth in money. After September 2001 a fund is set up. Its purpose is to keep the airlines from being sued out of existence; families of the dead and injured will receive payment in exchange for not bringing a case. For the fund to work there is a condition. At least eighty per cent of the families must join. Feinberg takes the work without a fee. He builds a formula. The age, income and remaining working years of the dead are multiplied and a figure comes out. Then the families arrive. From there the film becomes a story of collision. The formula does not work; every family is a separate case and the figure meets nothing anywhere. A firefighter's family comes out low. A trader's family comes out high, and that produces fury in the room. Charles Wolf forms a group. A man who lost his wife campaigns against the fund and opens a website. What the narrative is interested in is not money but listening: at first Feinberg talks to nobody, he only calculates; the film's turning point is his sitting down to listen. Some lines are especially hard. Unofficial partners, unrecognised relationships and undocumented workers fall outside the formula. The narrative does not make the resolution easy. The formula is changed but no family leaves satisfied with the figure it receives. Michael Keaton plays the part coldly. The character is deliberately unlikeable and his change is slow. The source is Feinberg's own book. The production was shown at Sundance and released on Netflix. Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Amy Ryan and Tate Donovan are in the cast. Sara Colangelo directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes quiet drama built on law and ethics. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an emotional peak; the narrative is deliberately flat and the subject never eases.