Runtime: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Quick Impressions:
So that’s what you’ve got to do to get a book deal these days! Survive a series of spinal surgeries, become an Olympic class skier, endure a freak injury as the world watches, steal control of a high-stakes, underground celebrity poker game in Los Angeles, start your own even higher-stakes poker game in New York, get inadvertently mixed up with the Russian Mafia until you attract the attention of the FBI…
Seriously as a novelist, I must confess that the book deal angle dominated my thoughts as I watched Aaron Sorkin’s exhilarating directorial debut Molly’s Game. Never have I left a movie so eager to read the book. (That’s probably a lie. I do read a lot of books. But at this moment it feels true.)
If Molly Bloom is still shopping around for a new career, surely she has a future as a writer. Her origin story rivals Dostoevsky’s, and she’s already got a literary name. (About half an hour into the movie, I started realizing, “Wait! Her name is Molly Bloom?” Then later Chris O’Dowd shows up thinking she’s Irish, prompting Molly herself to mention that he’s confusing her with the famous character from Ulysses.)
I want to read Molly’s book for a number of reasons. The story is definitely captivating, but I also find myself wondering how much of it is actually true. I mean, in some of these scenes Molly comes across like the Florence Nightingale of poker, the caring soul who tries to stop the bleeding when gamblers spiral to ruin, but, then again, she’s the one telling us the story, so…
I’d also love to know if Molly Bloom can write as well as Aaron Sorkin. Surely she can’t, right? Nobody writes snappy banter better than Sorkin. His gift for engaging dialogue is actually what made me choose this movie tonight when my scheme to see Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris early didn’t work out. (Sadly the one new film opening early this Thursday evening was Fifty Shades Freed, and that would interest me only if shown as a double feature with The Birds, followed by a live Q&A with Tippi Hedron and her lion.)
Besides, Sorkin’s screenplay is nominated for an Oscar, so now the OCD completionist in me is pleased to have seen all the Adapted Screenplay nominees.
I do intend to buy Molly Bloom’s book, though. I find her very charming, and I’d like to contribute to her royalties. (Now clearly the film intends to leave us with this positive impression of her character, but since my opinion makes no difference, I’ll just say that the film worked and continue liking her for the moment.)
The Good:
Now when I say that I find Molly Bloom very charming, that’s a bit of an understatement. If Dos Equis ever wants to try out a female spokesperson, Molly Bloom would be a good candidate for Most Interesting Woman in the World.
Fairly early on, I decided, “Wow, I’m just completely in love with her. She’s beautiful, brilliant, bold, compassionate, courageous, witty.”
Of course, it really helps that she’s being played by Jessica Chastain and that her dialogue is written by Aaron Sorkin.
Ordinarily, I’m quite drawn to people who display an almost sociopathic level of boldness, especially if like Molly they slowly reveal that they do actually have compassion for others. (As portrayed by the film, Bad Brad probably is a sociopath while Molly clearly is not.) I’m such a morass of feelings and anxieties. In high school, I once called myself a pillar of instability, and though I don’t always see myself the same way, I stand by that description.
Honestly, I’m pretty smart myself. Like Molly, I’m great at observing people and figuring out how a system works. But I would not have the guts (or the inclination) to turn these observations into a high stakes poker game enabling me to fill a room of my choice with the world’s power players. Few of us would, and that’s why the Mollys of the world can. The way Molly builds the game up from the ground in New York is truly impressive. In theory, anyone could do that. But in practice, most of us would be grossly unequal to the task. It requires something more than intelligence.
She reminds me a little of The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort in his early stages (though she never goes off the rails nearly as completely). It’s not just that she’s smart. It’s that she’s unafraid, poised, confident. All of these exceptional qualities do make the character extremely alluring, and Chastain’s looks and manner don’t hurt.
To my surprise, after the movie, I learned that my husband had basically the same reaction to the character.
This is an exceptional performance by Jessica Chastain, who is often so austere. She somehow softens herself for this role, showing a quality more like Celia Foote in The Help here than she has a in a while.
“It’s like she made herself more round,” I tried to explain. I don’t mean that she’s voluptuous (though I suppose she is). I mean her facial features somehow seem less angular in this role and more rounded. They must do it with make-up, her rounded eyes and mouth. There’s a gentle kindness in her smile. I’m not sure if that’s something being done to her to make her look like Molly Bloom (or maybe just to make her look younger). It may be something she’s doing herself, a nuance of the performance that fits the character she’s playing. Most likely the effect is a combination of make-up and acting, but the point is, she’s markedly different here, making this performance stand out from her others (which are always good).
It’s really too bad that Meryl Streep deserved that Oscar nomination. What are fine actresses like Jessica Chastain and Michelle Williams supposed to do if Meryl Streep keeps acting and gobbling up all the nominations?
I do believe that all five nominated actresses deserve their Oscar nods, but it’s such a shame there are not just a couple of extra nominations held in reserve, to be used only when a year has been particularly strong. In a weaker year, Chastain almost certainly would have been nominated for Best Actress.
As it is, the film has only one nomination, for Aaron Sorkin’s deserving screenplay.
My husband exclaimed, “You know it’s a sign that movies have been so strong this year when something like this gets only one nomination!”
I agree, though I do wonder if maybe some people in Hollywood have strong feelings of animosity toward Molly Bloom. I mean, there’s plenty of bad feeling floating around in the world for Tonya Harding (another disgraced athlete with a movie this season), but there’s no reason for those in the film industry specifically to dislike Harding. Bloom’s scandolous game allegedly involved some huge names in the industry. In the film, she treats them (and the privileged information she learns about them) pretty respectfully, but we definitely also see her burn at least two bridges all the way to the ground.
Surely Idris Elba would have earned a nomination in a less crowded year, too. As Molly’s lawyer Charlie Jaffey, Elba probably gives the best performance in the film. The two of them have wonderful chemistry, and (as you would expect from Aaron Sorkin) their verbal exchanges sizzle with their razor sharp wit. Elba delivers an impassioned rant late in the movie that’s one of the true highlights of the film and would definitely have secured him a spot in the Supporting Actor line-up in a less crowded year.
I was also delighted to see Michael Cera, who really ought to be in more high profile movies. (Who is Player X, really? I have some guesses and plan to do a little sleuthing once I finish this review. I think it would be hilarious, given the Cera casting, if he were Jesse Eisenberg, but I’m actually wondering if it’s someone like Leonardo DiCaprio. Maybe I’m just thinking of him because of Jordan Belfort, though.) There’s also a conspicuously strong performance by Bill Camp who dominates one of the more intense and satisfying portions of the film. Chris O’Dowd is a welcome addition, and it was really cool to see Joe Keery from Stranger Things (who probably could have used Steve’s bat based on the way the character’s life is going).
At moments, I absolutely loved Kevin Costner as Molly’s dad. Actually, I had a love/hate relationship with the performance, much like Molly’s own complex feelings for her actual father (if we believe that what we’re seeing on screen is true). Costner has this one great moment that made both me and my husband cry. His performance moved me (and reminded me of my own father in one aspect), but I actually found the scene maybe too manipulative (which I’ll discuss later).
Best Scene:
Maybe the best sequence of the entire film is the Harlan Eustice story arc. (Honestly, it almost feels like a play-within-a-play The Tragic Tale of Harlan Eustice.) This scene gives us such insight into Molly’s character because we see so clearly the parallel between what happened to her on the slopes and what Harlan experiences at the poker table.
Best Scene Visually:
It’s cool to see all the poker chips and cards, to get the idea that we’re all deeply involved in this clever game. We have to do no actual work, very little thinking. The movie just graciously gives us the illusion that we know what’s going on. In that aspect, this film reminds me of Moneyball (which Sorkin previously adapted to an Oscar nomination).
No one scene stands out to me visually. I just love the way we’re constantly bombarded by little flickers of fame and money and poker skill. It gives us the illusion that we’re part of this world all while showing us how illusory, empty, fleeting, and unobtainable it all it.
Best Action Sequence:
Maybe my favorite part of the entire film is the historical anecdote about Robinson, introduced as Molly tries to make sense of her catastrophic run.
But of course, it is exciting to see her trip over that branch. (And on a related note, I’m so excited that the winter games are underway. I love the Olympics so much!)
The Negatives:
This whole film is set up to make us believe Molly Bloom, but the deck feels a bit loaded, and that irritated me a little, the unshakable sensation that someone was pulling a fast one.
For instance, Molly tells her lawyer that she turned down like five movie deals due to creative differences. Clearly she agreed to this one, so this must be the best movie, the one showing us the truth.
And the way that Idris Elba’s character pleads on her behalf–she won’t tell you that she did this, she won’t tell you that she did that, she won’t boast about her virtue. I mean, you know, it’s hard not to think of Caesar refusing the crown. I mean, she is telling us (the audience). She’s telling us with this movie. And then to have Molly succumb to her modest sense of self-reproach and protest to her lawyer, “But you also never told them this bad thing about me…” I don’t know. To me this feels a bit like, cue the audience, “Awww! And she’s so humble, too!”
Anyone who has studied literature from other periods knows that controversial material can most safely be expressed in a dialogue. That way, any writer accused of disseminating ideas that are shocking (or illegal) can easily claim, “But I didn’t say it! My character said it! Look the other character is objecting to what this character said…”
It’s hard not to view Sorkin’s screenplay as Molly’s masterstroke of presenting herself to us in the best possible light. Now I don’t know how much creative control (if any) she had over the project. I don’t know how involved she was.
But it just feels like that’s what’s going on. Maybe Sorkin is doing that on purpose because he wants to play mimetic poker with the audience, showing us not only how similar competitive skiing is to poker, but how presenting a movie to an audience is also the same thing. Maybe he wants to show us that the screenplay can bluff the audience and pocket the kings (or not). If so, that’s an extremely brilliant move. (I’ll have to watch the film again to be sure.) But it still leaves me with the feeling of being manipulated, which I found slightly grating.
I also thought having her Dad magically appear to provide the emotional closure and clarity she obviously needed was a bit too heavy-handed. It’s funny that the movie makes the “fake out” solution that he says he offers just to irritate her also seem a bit true.
I’d like to know if her father really did suddenly show up like that. I’ve got to read the book. Charlie Jaffey says she wrote the book too soon and left out the best part (because the movie we’re watching is obviously the best part, right?). So is everything that happens in the present time of the movie not in the book? Some of these elements feel way too neat and convenient.
Also, in general, the end of the movie is not as exciting as the beginning and the middle, but that probably mirrors Molly’s life. Maybe that’s the moral of the story. No matter what you do, you’re boring in the end.
Overall:
Molly’s Game is fantastically entertaining. There’s something weirdly seductive about it all. Well, I guess “weirdly” is the wrong word. The world, the flesh, and the devil make it “traditionally” seductive. Aaron Sorkin’s nominated screenplay probably actually is the movie’s greatest strength, though there are some fine performances from Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, and Kevin Costner which might have been honored by the Academy in another year. Plus, it’s always exciting to watch a famous writer direct a film for the first time, and, on a related note, I now want to learn to play poker.
(My mother just mentioned an Alias revival, so now I’m wondering if Player X is Ben Affleck. I really need to buy that book and do some digging!)