Saturday Film Club #3: Molly's Game

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Country of origin and year of release: US, 2017

Adapted from the book Molly's Game, the memoir of 'poker princess' Molly Bloom who successfully ran a gambling empire in Los Angeles and New York before being charged by the FBI for reasons not entirely to do with poker. This is a fast paced legal thriller in which we watch our heroine travel from professional skier and would-be Harvard Law School student to a grafter living on her wits, taking advantage of every opportunity offered to her in some of the most entitled and seedy corners of the University of Life.

Jessica Chastain plays Molly with wit, energy and just the right combination of toughness and vulnerability. Idris Elba plays her defence lawyer and intellectual sparring partner, Charles Jaffey, and Kevin Costner puts in an understated performance as her perfectionist, blunt, and frequently infuriating father. 

There are some key differences between book and film, the main one being that the book was published before the case against Molly got to court. This means that Elba's character was created for the film and does not appear in the book. In a related note, the book itself is frequently discussed within the film and is referenced with regard to one of the key plot revelations to do with Bloom's ethical decisions regarding her high profile gamblers. It's also worth pointing out that some of the messier parts of Bloom's life are excised from the film, all of the characters are anonymised (whereas some are named in the book) and some of the characters are tweaked slightly as well. In short, if you want to find out who the real Player X (played by Michael Cera) was, you can read the book.

The film begins with Molly's past before shooting forward a good few years to the moment when she is arrested by the FBI, meaning the film alternates afterwards between Bloom's always engaging voiceover combined with flashbacks, and scenes taking place in the present between Bloom and Jaffey. Bloom and Jaffey's client/lawyer relationship has a rocky start and the scenes between the two of them are marked by fast back and forth dialogue that verges on well mannered bickering. The chemistry between Elba and Chastain works extremely well in this regard: Jaffey is dismissive of Bloom at the start of their acquaintance, and he is reluctant to take her on as a client. Over time though, he begins to feel at turns exasperated and sympathetic towards her and, eventually, he is 100% on her side.

At the heart of the legal aspect of the drama is Bloom's decision not to name names. At first Jaffey thinks she is a hypocrite because she has already named some names in her book. Later, he discovers by chance that the names in her book were already in the public domain, thanks to an earlier legal deposition by one of her gamblers. Due to the nature of those who attended her gambling parties (Hollywood A Listers, Business tycoons, members of the Russian Mob...), she is put under increasing pressure to yield the names. As Jaffey puts it at one point "J Edgar didn't have this much shit on Bobby!" In exchange for the names she is promised immunity from prosecution and the return of her confiscated wealth, and she refuses: Despite being financially destitute and the threat of a criminal record hanging over her.

Her moral integrity is as refreshing as her beating by an Italian mobster is shocking. By far and away the most violent scene in the film, the arbitrary and matter of fact violence of the attack mirrors very closely how Bloom describes the incident in her book and underlines the seriousness of her situation in the end days of her gambling empire. 

The films ending is both unexpected and satisfying without being sentimental, which would be a good way to describe this film overall. Hollywood doesn't make films about characters like Molly Bloom, not really, and for that reason alone, this film is well worth seeing.