Jessica Chastain Moves Like A (Card) Shark In ‘Molly’s Game’ [TIFF Review]

For his entire career, Aaron Sorkin has delighted in following the journey of ambitious, visionary, and sometimes deeply flawed men. From the fractured geniuses of “The Social Network” and “Steve Jobs,” to the data driven obsession of the Oakland A’s general manager in “Moneyball,” to the news anchor eager to shake up the system in “The Newsroom,” the screenwriter has crafted singular portraits of those who eagerly want not just success, but the power to implement their unorthodox ideas, and the space to reshape the conventions around them. And while “Molly’s Game” sees Sorkin putting a woman in the middle of the frame for the first time in his career, his stamp is nonetheless pressed firmly on the material. However, the movie also reveals that in making his directorial debut, the filmmaker is still finding his voice behind the camera.

The film tells the true story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) an Olympic level skier, who is blazingly intelligent and fiercely resourceful. But when we first meet her, she’s down on her luck, having missed her shot at the Olympics due to a freak accident. She’s now couch-surfing, bartending at a pricey dance club, and putting off law school, where everyone around Molly knows she will excel. For now, Molly is content making decent money selling overpriced bottles of vodka to chumps with too much money, until she falls in with Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong), a Hollywood hanger on who keeps the A-list close at hand with a weekly, high stakes card game. Molly is hired to help him run it, and she’s soon building an empire, even if it’s operating in a legal gray area at best. “Don’t break the law while you’re breaking law,” goes the enigmatic advice from her legal advisor Louis Butterman (Michael Kostroff).

 Molly’s ambitions soon outgrow what Dean is able to provide, and it’s not long until she’s running her own poker nights, stealing his clients, and giving the evenings a little more class and sex appeal (with Molly appearing, as she describes it, as the Cinemax version of herself; this is a movie with no shortage of Chastain in beautifully decadent dresses), coupled with a rigorous attention to the numbers, and a careful vetting of who gets to sit at the table. The game starts booming, and enthusiasts like the unnamed movie star Player X (Michael Cera) are part of the draw in luring big money players, but eventually, it all goes bust, as Molly’s company comes to include Russian mobsters. She becomes the central piece in a massive racketeering case by the FBI, and lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) reluctantly takes on her cause.

“Molly’s Game” is a movie about poker, in the same way “Moneyball” is about baseball — while both use sports as the conduit for their stories, Sorkin is more interested in the nitty gritty mechanics that his protagonists take in their hands and remodel. However, where in “Moneyball” we saw how Billy Beane’s methods not only changed the season for a team but gave overlooked players a leg up, in “Molly’s Game” we’re really just watching how Molly got more money on the table. To put it crudely, she’s a great event planner, with a savvy sense of showmanship, but Molly Bloom didn’t shake up the gambling industry so much as run her own personal casino with exclusive clientele.

In this regard, “Molly’s Game” is captivating only up to a certain point, because there are only so many times you can watch stacks of poker chips get higher, outfits get more expensive and low cut, and players more high rolling, before the drama becomes slightly repetitive. Particularly at two hours and twenty minutes, the story is overlong, even if to Sorkin’s credit, his energetic screenplay is always moving. However, there is a lack of finesse in his approach. Layered with flashbacks and with the story told in voice-over by Molly who provides a running commentary on the proceedings, “Molly’s Game” sees Sorkin at his clunkiest when it comes to storytelling. The film is a drama, legal thriller, and even a father/daughter tale about family rolled into one, and that bulk is felt.

But again, Sorkin’s swordsman-like pen continually keeps the picture engaging; his knack for one-liners and absurd dialogue detail remains finely attuned. So too is his ability to fill the fringes with fascinating color characters, such as: Harlan (Bill Camp), a ferociously smart player who is undone by a strategy-free approach towards his fellow card sharks; the enthusiastically terrible player nicknamed Bad Brad (Ari Cohen); and the perpetually drunk, sad sack Irishman (Chris O’Dowd), who spends as much time playing as amusingly lamenting every decision he’s ever made in his life.

What Sorkin’s writing can’t gloss over is his lack of experience behind the camera, and it’s what makes “Molly’s Game” a mostly good movie instead of a great one. Aside from bursts of “The Big Short” style-editing in some sequences, the film is cinematically and aesthetically flat, to the point where it makes you appreciate all over again how the auteur style of David Fincher and Danny Boyle, in particular, really brought his talk heavy material to the next level. But if the visuals lack punch, the performances are first rate. Chastain is expectedly commanding as Molly, whose steely, calculating exterior is a shell for a depth of sensitivity. However, it’s Elba who arguably steals the show, getting a couple of truly showstopper monologues which he bites into with relish. Another nod should also go to Kevin Costner, playing Molly’s father, who pushed her at all costs into achieving greatness from a young age while simultaneously pushing her away, realizing almost too late the consequences of his actions.

“Molly’s Game” is ultimately the story of a young woman who achieved the dizzying highs of success, and the overwhelming lows of failure, as both an athlete and entrepreneur. This is a story of someone whose determination rarely leaves the potential of any project from being fully realized, and perhaps the biggest dramatic takeaway from “Molly’s Game” is that this is probably not the last time you’ll hear the name Molly Bloom. [B]

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