Wall Street is a frequent cinematic destination, from Oliver Stone's hit film of the same name, an ostensible story of greed before the fall for a flashy corporate raider which still inspired a generation to embrace flashy greed, to The Big Short, a sardonic and well-researched study of the subprime mortgage crisis. The small, but compelling suspense film Equity finds a new Wall Street-related vein to tap: the experience of women in the finance industry. Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) is a gifted and prosperous investor who, despite her laudable résumé, is always aware of the glass ceiling: she is often criticized or chided as a nuisance for behavior people would interpret as forthright and thorough in a man. Naomi sees the introduction of a high-profile new I.P.O.—a San Francisco-based Internet security company—as another chance to prove herself and elevate her profile, though her life is complicated by a lover who or may not be involved with insider training (James Purefoy) and an old friend who is now a federal investigator (Alysia Reiner). It is an involving story, a whirlwind of allegiance and duplicity and power moves presented one sharply written scene after another, and its feminist conscience gives it an extra novelty and sting. Consider the character of Erin (Sarah Megan Thomas), a vice president under Naomi, whose joy at becoming pregnant is rapidly deluged with anxiety and doubt regarding how it will impact her promising career, leaving her to guiltily interrupt a sonogram with a business call and slip away from a party to replace her martini with tap water.

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