Molly’s Game

Molly's Game is a biopic film based on the book of the same name published in 2014. This extraordinary tale follows the life of Molly Bloom, whose early life was full of promise. Her father was extremely driven and a successful psychologist and she was a world-class competitive skier. Her brothers were also an Olympic freestyle champion and a professional footballer. Molly graduated with honours with a BA in political science, but her life took a strange turn when she chose to take a year out before heading to Law school.

This amazing tale observes the incredible circumstances that place this extremely driven woman in a position to set up one of the most exclusive high stakes poker games ever. Seizing her opportunity she famously had a list of clients that included movie stars, pop stars, sports stars, bankers and the Russian mafia. Names are not used in the movie but the book does name a number of A-list players at the exclusive Pokers games run by Molly Bloom – Tobey Maguire, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Alexander Rodriguez are just the tip of the iceberg. Bloom was making vast amounts of money and even had her business registered as Molly Bloom Inc but everything fell apart when she was arrested by the FBI in 2013 along with thirty-three others who all faced charges of money laundering.

The movie is the directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin, who also provided the screenplay for the film. Sorkin is famous for his screenwriting, but that seems to be the overwhelming focus for the direction of this movie. That is not to say the direction is terrible, but it is not amazing either and if it were not for the great cast this film could have been quite a drag. The cast is not huge but executed perfectly. Kevin Costner is great playing Molly's demanding father, Chris O'Dowd is a surprise playing Douglas Downey. But the performance by the two main leads is just excellent, Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba (Beasts Of No Nation, Turn Up Charlie) have huge chemistry on screen, playing Molly and her lawyer they take the brilliant script and lift this movie to a completely new level. Jessica Chastain is totally convincing, providing a powerful but moving performance with excellent narration throughout the movie – she was nominated for Best Actress in the Golden Globes and it has to be said, she really deserved to walk away as the winner for this performance.

It has to be said, I personally am not a great poker player so it was not this that pulled me to this movie. It is the human story that really shines in the fantastic screenplay, this is a story of great successes and epic failures. But more importantly the drive to survive beyond that and move forward. All in all, Molly's Game is an amazing story that is brought brilliantly to the screen by fantastic performances from the cast and excellent script. This is a moving story that is strangely inspiring and as was included with your Prime subscription in September 2018 – give it a go it is well worth watching.