Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, a lot of the structural dialogue may seem familiar, however this movie isn’t set in the newsroom and nor is it about a few good men.
Poker is at the forefront, but Molly Bloom is not playing games.
Ready to enjoy her youth after what feels like a lifetime in competitive sports, Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) has moved to Los Angeles craving normalcy.
Her world literally changes overnight when her boss Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong) introduces her to the world of poker, where he plays amongst some of the most well known names and faces in Hollywood.
As what was meant to be a gap year before college rapidly turns into a self made empire, Molly Bloom is about to learn that when your kingdom is built from cards – it’s destined to fall.
If this is your first ever Sorkin experience then welcome. We hope you enjoyed the passionate soliloquies, fragmented conversations and characters who weren’t afraid to let everyone know they are the smartest person in the room. It’s all classic Sorkin.
Molly Bloom is an extraordinary character, made even more so by the fact she is based on a real person. She probably didn’t talk for two minutes without stumbling or drawing breath, but what she was able to build was inspiring and made a great foundation for a movie.
What was interesting is that they didn’t choose to go with a standard chronological sequence of events. The rearranged timeline breathed life into the story enabling it to accurately portray the fast and loose lifestyle Molly lived. It was like we were watching the physical manifestation of a shuffled deck of cards.
The scene’s set in the present focused on Molly and her lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), a stark comparison between the height of Molly’s success where she was rarely alone. Their scenes had the potential to be incredibly dull, but thankfully (in spite of Elba’s horrid American accent) the two characters bounced well off one another, and had a number of riveting and funny back and forths.
Yes I am a stickler for a well written piece of drama, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also like a bit of action, and for me that was one thing the movie lacked.
Key turning moments within the movie were done over the telephone (three by my count) completely taking away any sort of dramatic exposition. Yes we’re not stupid and did understand what was going on without said dramatic elements, however part of coming to the cinema is the viewing experience, and in that respect we missed out.
The second and final thing that Molly’s Game deprived its audience of was explanation.
Poker is a well known but uncommonly played game, and though I know a few terms, when it came to the intricacies of the game being discussed, I more or less blanked out.
The movie did help by attempting to visually demonstrate the game, but it failed, as once again there was no context. It was easy enough to follow who was winning and losing by Molly’s narration, but a quick “Top Five Poker Rules” at the start would have been appreciated.
So there we have it.
My first film of 2018 has been watched and it was a fantastic pick to start off the new year in cinema. Despite some of my negative views towards the movie, as a whole I immensely enjoyed it – and if you think that has anything to do with my favouritism towards Aaron Sorkin…. Then you are correct.
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