There’s a reason why this movie is so popular. Molly’s Game features a fascinating true story of highs, lows, life of crime, and the lives of the rich. Most of these things seamlessly blend into a captivating narrative. Driven by Jessica Chastain’s mesmerizing performance, this is an engaging biopic about the life of Molly Bloom. She was a top-level athlete and also a high-profile criminal. And to find out how she achieved all this, you’ll have to see the movie. With excellent production values and pacing, it’s pretty easy to watch. I recommend it as a perfect movie for airplane or bus travel as it can keep your attention without any issues.
There are so many potent themes here that you’re sure to be interested in at least one of them, if not all. Molly’s Game enables us to peer inside the world of high-stakes gambling and the elites who live in it. Their lives are nothing like ours and that’s part of the appeal. However, underneath all the money and glamour are ordinary people with ordinary personality problems. And we will learn all about them. I found this aspect of the movie fascinating. We had an insider explain to us in detail how would you go about setting up a high-stakes poker game.
Moreover, we will also find out what dangers might befall you if you decide to go down this path of a life of crime. Bloom says that the most money she saw a player lose during one poker night was around $100 million. That’s a lot of money for almost everyone on Earth but apparently not for everyone. And you can expect to see some familiar faces here, including Leonardo DiCaprio (headphones guy) and Tobey Maguire. He’s rumored to be the infamous player X.
Meet Molly Bloom, a perspective young skier dreaming of one day becoming the world’s number one. She keeps winning and winning until she has a terrible accident in a qualifying event for the 2002 Winter Olympics. With her career as a skier over, Molly decides to move to Los Angeles and live a little. This is how she meets Dean, a real estate developer who has a shady underground business…
Now, with the running time of two hours and twenty minutes, this is more of an epic than a digestible thriller. But I have to tell you that this movie didn’t bore me at all. Although I think they should’ve shaved off at least 30 minutes of it. This is Aaron Sorkin’s first movie as a director so he might have gone a little overboard. After all, he’s mostly known for his work on the television show The West Wing. Sorkin also wrote scripts for several other excellent biopics like Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, and The Social Network.
He keeps things tight here and the pacing in Molly’s Game is excellent. However, the combination of excellent dialogue and the bizarreness of the real events is the thing that got me. Apart from stunning Chastain, we also got charismatic Idris Elba and Jeremy Strong channeling his inner Kendall Roy. Plus I think you’re going to recognize the entire supporting cast.
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Writers: Aaron Sorkin, Molly Bloom
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Jeremy Strong, Chris O’Dowd, Bill Camp
Fun Facts: Molly Bloom wanted Jessica Chastain to play her in this movie and she got her wish.
Rating:
IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4209788/
