Molly's Game
4 stars
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Stars: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner
Duration: 140 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd
Only in America would the FBI have the courtesy to call Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) seconds before a team of 17 agents arrest her at her apartment for running an illegal poker game – and only in America could this incredibly true story happen.
Egged on by her ambitious father (Kevin Costner), the young Molly Bloom was a champion Olympic skier who was forced to give up the sport after a serious back injury. Taking time off before embarking on law school, Molly moves to LA and takes a PA job which introduces her to the world of underground poker, a world she takes to like a fish to water. After starting off by merely serving drinks and keeping the books, Molly eventually began to run her own games on her own terms.
Players included business tycoons, politicians, famous actors and directors, and sports personalities, and it was not long before the games became a magnet for unsavoury types, including known Russian mobsters. The stakes were extraordinarily high, with some players losing millions of dollars in one night. It got to the point where Molly was extending credit to losing players until they could pay it back – to the extent that at the time of her arrest and all her assets were seized she had over a million dollars owed to her.
Sorkin brings to the project his trademark rapid-fire dialogue, brimming with sharp wit and eloquence
The film is written and directed (in his first venture behind the camera) by Aaron Sorkin, the wordsmith par excellence behind TV smash The West Wing and many movies of note. Sorkin brings to the project his trademark rapid-fire dialogue, brimming with sharp wit and eloquence, and exquisitely-drawn smart, attractive and intriguing characters who draw you in from the opening.
It is fast-paced in its execution, and looks gorgeous, glamourous and glitzy, as with consummate skill, Molly organises her classy poker games in the best suites of the ritziest hotels – with professional dealers running the games, the best food and drink on tap, and her clients getting five-star treatment. Although she was always straddling the line between the licit and illicit – and fending off a few amorous advances – the players all took the game seriously and were only there for the poker.
Sorkin’s script is rather jargon-heavy at times. I don’t know the first thing about poker, so I admit to getting a little lost as the games were unfolding on screen with Bloom’s extensive narration. But this did not really detract from the main thrust of the story.
It is, indeed, an absorbing story about a fascinating character, and very topical in its study of a woman trying to be successful in a male-dominated world. Unsurprisingly, Chastain excels in bringing her to life. She paints Bloom as a smart, strong woman full of joie de vivre, who revelled in the heady, exhilarating and intoxicating lifestyle she built for herself until the FBI came a-calling. She was capable of handling it all – the huge amounts of money changing hands, the strong, all-male personalities she had to deal with, always with intelligence, charm and strength. But her vulnerabilities are seriously exposed when things became ugly, and ultimately, dangerous.
And yet, she always maintained the high moral ground, determined to protect the name and reputation of the players involved even though they wouldn’t (and didn’t) hesitate to throw her under the bus, at the cost of her own personal freedom.
Her reluctance to spill the beans is one of the many issues over which she locks horns with her defence lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba, excellent as always). Sparks fly in every scene between the two. He is, as it were, the audience’s eyes and ears as Molly tells him her story and, initially unimpressed by this ‘Poker Princess’ who he believes is in serious trouble of her own making, he ultimately comes to realise she is a woman of integrity and someone worth defending. His admiration for her grows, as does ours.