“Molly’s Game”– Movie Review

This week, I attended a New York Times Film Club screening of the new biographical drama, “Molly’s Game”, starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba and Kevin Costner.

Synopsis

When a woman becomes wealthy by organizing high stakes poker games, will she be forced to do prison time because of her ties to organized crime?

Story

From her childhood in Colorado, Molly Bloom had a number of challenges to overcome before she could become an Olympic-class skier.  First, she had a severe case of scoliosis which required long surgery to correct.  For another thing, in Larry (Costner), she had a rather strict and demanding father.  All of this combined to make her tough both physically and mentally.  By the time she grew up, Molly (Chastain) saw that all those years of practice and sacrifice paid off by being able to compete for a spot on the United States Olympic Team.  But there was one more challenge for her to overcome:  during a competition, she sustains a freak accident which not only disqualifies her but also leaves her badly injured, effectively ending her career as an athlete.

Without the career for which she had spent all of her life to that point in a state of constant training, Molly now had to figure out how to move forward.  An incredibly bright and studious young woman, she could get into law school.  But she put that on hold and took a job for a man who had her organize his weekly high-stakes poker games with rich and famous participants.  Being a quick study and naturally intelligent, Molly became knowledgeable not only in the game itself, but also proficient as the superintendent of these games.  Eventually, she realizes she doesn’t need her boss – she can put together these games herself and pocket all of the money.

But she proves a little too successful, causing her to be arrested by the FBI.  Not only are they after her for the gambling, but also for the fact that by coordinating these games, she came into contact with members of organized crime which The Bureau is trying to nail.  In deep trouble, she hires Charlie Jaffey (Elba) as her lawyer to represent her in court and defend her against the FBI.  Molly insists that she was unaware of the players’ connections to the Russian Mob, but when incriminating evidence appears to pile up, can even a skilled attorney like Jaffey get her out of trouble?

Review

“Molly’s Game” is a true story, based on the book by Bloom.  The movie is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin; while watching it, you could probably figure out that it’s a Sorkin script by virtue of how much dialog it has.  Sorkin has a reputation for writing excessively talky screenplays, and he continues in that tradition.  Whether or not people will reject it – as they did with his other biographical drama, “Steve Jobs” – remains to be seen, but if you don’t know what to expect when you buy a ticket to a film he wrote, then shame on you. 

This is also Sorkin’s directorial debut; while he shows a good deal of promise as a visual storyteller (surprising, given his proclivity for dialog-heavy scripts), he does seem to make some rookie mistakes.  One of those – and arguably, the most glaring – is an early scene of Bloom’s first meeting with Jaffey.  While in his spacious office, they have a long and (guess what?) talky scene; instead of trying to break it up with secondary action (i.e., editing so as to cut between the two actors using different shot sizes), he chooses primary action (having the actors move around the room and/or each other).  This results in some awkward moments.  Thankfully, he didn’t opt for tertiary movement (physically moving the camera during the shot) because as we all know, only Scorsese can successfully pull off that one. 

As far as the acting is concerned, Chastain’s performance is seamless; you genuinely believe she is Bloom, a brilliant ex-athlete who proves to be too clever for her own good.  But stealing the movie from her is Elba as her attorney.  Elba’s earnest, stalwart lawyer Jaffey is at times quite funny; it’s difficult to know for certain, but one gets the impression while watching Elba’s performance that this was an acting choice on his part.  If so, it was a good one, because this is a heavy movie desperately in need of comic relief.  Perhaps the only negative about “Molly’s Game” is its length (over two hours), but this can be easily forgiven; a story this complex is difficult to tell in two hours or less.