Films > Film Reviews

Molly's Game

Cinema City

16/12/17

Goodfellas meets Ocean’s Eleven in this ambitious but unsatisfying thriller that is a half-arsed character study and full-arsed stylish depiction of decadence, greed and ambition in the world of underground high stakes poker. Slick tricks and suave sleight of hand seduce you, and you are ushered into a surreal world of excess soaked with glam and lavish charm in this film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin (Steve Jobs, The Social Network).

Jessica Chastain is striking in the titular role, giving a layered and nuanced performance as Molly Bloom, an ambitious ex Olympic skier who bluffed her way to the very top only to descend on a collision course of self-destruction. Michael Cera is an unlikely gem in this and his usual squeaky awkward persona in nowhere to be found in his brilliant depiction of Player X, a sociopathic celebrity poker player who loves to ruin people’s lives.

Sorkin’s dialogue is electric and dazzles with passionate monologues and quick barbed exchanges, but the storytelling itself leaves something to be desired. A quotable film doesn’t make for a great film, and what we have here is Sorkin going for broke trying to give his film all the credibility and punch of a Greek tragedy, whilst simultaneously losing all perspective of the themes and questions at the core of the story. He has made a house of cards without a foundation, a bet without a buy-in and a bluff without a poker face.

When watching the film, make sure you play bingo whenever Sorkin adds gratuitous cleavage to an emotionally fraught scene. You are guaranteed to get a full house several times before the credits roll. There’s nothing like forcing a scene to be sexy when the context and tone strongly disagree, deflating it of tension like a punctured bouncy castle. Such fetishizing of Molly’s struggles takes away from truly brilliant acting and does a disservice to Sorkin’s largely excellent script.

Molly’s Game is guilty of double glazing the very glass ceiling she tried to shatter. The script fails the Bechdel test many times over, with most pivotal conversations revolving around men even when they’re about her. The film’s answer to a story about a woman trying to one-up powerful men, is to continually relate her character back to the influence of the men she tried to separate herself from. From her actions being explained as stemming from deep-rooted issues with her psychologist father (Kevin Costner), to Molly’s defence lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) continually rivalling her screen time, it feels that for large chunks the movie is about Molly Bloom only in name.

This is a clever story but not a heartfelt one. Sorkin doesn’t really want to unpick Molly’s surreal life and genius mind, he wants a swanky cardboard cut-out of a character but didn’t try writing further into the trickier issues of sexism or drug abuse. It’s a slice-through of an event not a character study, which is a shame because a character study is precisely what it marketed itself as.

When Molly's novel of the same title was arguably written as a money-grab and later used as a bargaining tool and smokescreen when she was investigated for ties to the Russia mafia, it's difficult to think of this film, with it's corny family value ending and gift-wrapped moral resolutions, as being anything close to objective. It buys into the myths and legends surrounding her rise to fame that she herself skilfully and carefully cultivated over the years. Bloom herself has admitted that the novel is selective about the stories it tells and those it obscures, proving that the film was built from half-truths and speculations and begging the question: is Molly’s Game a biopic or propaganda?

Molly Bloom is a fascinating enigma who achieved the unthinkable with odds a million to one, but the film lets her down with its lack of risk-taking. It was headed for to a royal flush and folded prematurely.

5/10