The Laundromat (2019) on Netflix
When the pleasure boat Ethan Allen capsizes on Lake George and Joe drowns, his widow Ellen Martin seeks compensation. The policy's reinsurer was sold to a firm based in Nevis.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.3/1058,661 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes40%
Trailer
Plot summary
Lawyers Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca act as narrators, explaining the way money and credit work. Ellen Martin and her husband Joe are aboard the Ethan Allen, a pleasure boat on Lake George, New York, when it overturns. Joe drowns, along with many other passengers. Ellen asks the boating company for compensation for his death, but the owner and his son Matthew bought their policy from a reinsurance company that was sold to a company based out of Nevis. That Nevis company is a trust tied to one of Mossack's shell corporations, which the Internal Revenue Service is investigating for fraud. Ellen cannot reach Mossack or the Nevis company, so she travels there to confront the manager of the trust, Malchus Boncamper.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Laundromat (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Two days before its scheduled streaming release, the Mossack Fonseca partners Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca sued Netflix to block the film, arguing it defamed them. Netflix called the suit "laughable," and a Connecticut judge denied the injunction and moved the case to California, allowing the release as planned.
- The film drew criticism for brownface after Meryl Streep was cast in a secondary role as a Panamanian woman named Elena. Soderbergh acknowledged the controversy but said the dual role was justifiable in the context of the story and acceptable as a comedy trope, comparing it to Oldman's impression of a German person.
