Molly's Game
Jessica Chastain plays Molly Bloom. An ex skier who missed out on Olympic Glory thanks to a one in a million freak accident. We see her being arrested by the FBI and the film jumps back to her story of how she began running high stakes illegal poker tournaments and then back to her legal troubles in the present as the Federal government tries to make her tell all thanks to the presence in her games of high ranking members of the Russian mafia.
Its weird to think of this as a true story and I'd be interested in finding out what was changed for artistic licence. Hell, since its Molly telling her own story there's always the chance she's an unreliable narrator as some of the events in the story feel a little to outlandish to be true.
But anyway.
Its a good film. Probably won't take any Oscars. In places it feels very much like it was designed to win them. However the central story is a good one and well told. The films not so much about the poker being played, rather the poker is shown as a tool for the rich and successful to make power plays and network with each other. Molly as the host gets to listen in and treats it as the college she's skipped when she entered into this world. The film even makes an admittedly clumsy point that western economy is based on a much grander, but equally morally shady boys club for gambling with wall street.
Molly herself makes a reference to the Goddess Cerci from Greek mythology. This works pretty well as the key to Molly's story. We also get nice turns from Kevin Costner as Molly's dad. Michael Cera of all people appears as one of Mollys High stakes clients. He's actually demonically good in the film. He tells Molly he doesn't like poker so she asks why he plays. "I like to destroy people".
Overall its worth watching. I think Aaron Sorkin is a great writer. He probably needs a little more experience directing as this might have been a great film with a veteran behind the camera. However as a debut effort its solid.
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