Thursday, January 18, 2018

Molly's Game (2017)

We loved this fast-paced story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic downhill skiing hopeful sidelined by injury, who ran high stakes celebrity poker games from 2003-10 and was arrested in 2013. Her memoir, Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World, was published in 2014 and Aaron Sorkin (last blogged for writing The Social Network), in his directing debut, also adapted the screenplay with his trademark smart and rapid-fire dialogue. Jack and I particularly liked the cinematic skiing scenes with geometry of the sport playing out on screen. Watch for Sorkin hanging out later as an extra at some of the early games (here's his photo).

Jessica Chastain (most recently in The Zookeeper's Wife) is terrific and pulling in nominations as the title character and voiceover. Idris Elba (after voicing the Tiger in The Jungle Book he voiced the police chief in Zootopia) is good as her (fictionalized) lawyer, trading his native British accent for one that we think is supposed to sound like New York. Kevin Costner (last in Hidden Figures) is Molly's father, mostly in flashbacks and one sequence at the end.

Speaking of extras at the poker games, you will recognize several faces, especially Michael Cera (most recently in these pages for This Is the End) as Player X, but the ones you don't are actual professional poker players, who apparently played with cast and crew between takes and took home more money than their day rates.

Daniel Pemberton (just scored All the Money in the World) gives us exciting music (again), which I am streaming as I type by cherry-picking from a youtube playlist.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 81%, are slightly behind its audiences at 87. We recommend it on a screen big or small--it's playing everywhere now and is estimated for a March release on DVD and streaming.

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