November 11, 2017 2 min to read

Molly's Game

Sorkin's Vegas-drama left me wanting more from it's main characters - but the source material still carries it.

by Zach Saul

Molly’s Game is a well acted, occasionally quirky movie that too often felt like a trial instead of a narrative. Not the sort of trial you’d see on TrueTV, but instead a protagonist being put on trial by the screenwriter - while her inner monologue gets cast into the background. I haven’t read the book Molly’s Game (on which the movie is loosely based) but after watching the film I felt like i really should have liked Molly more - or at least have been more interested in her plight. Is Molly involved in the world’s high stakes games to prove her independence? Spite her father? Unleash repressed anger against the wall street elites? Why was she such a thunderous protector of her anonymous players? Too often I wondered if I should feel annoyed that Molly was being braggadocious, or sorry for her: as the men in her life mistreat her. I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, but I wish his screenplay would have explored some of these questions more deeply. Molly’s Game is entertaining, and stylistically engaging - but I left the theatre wondering why Molly’s story mattered more then my neighbor Derek’s who coaches the 10th ranked 6th grade basketball team in the nation.

I have tremendous respect for Jessica Chastain, and to this day believe Zero Dark Thirty is highly underrated - but found Kevin Costner’s Larry Bloom (Molly’s father) to be far more compelling than Molly. A prickly father producing talented and jaded children is nothing new narratively speaking - but we sense Larry’s pain and refrain as the movie progresses. The father who infamously forced his daughter to ski injured, was forced to refocus his condescending energy to explain to Molly her need to control men. It’s clear during this final sequence this was what Sorkin was shooting at. Despite this moment of clarity I found it fairly problematic. For a fiercely independent woman trying to control men and prove her independence - it feels odd to me that three speeches from powerful men are what drive the narrative of her biopic. The first from “Player X (Michael Cera) the second from her lawyer (Idris Elba) and the third from her Dad (Costner).

Structurally, Molly’s Game reminds me of the Steve Jobs film Sorkin wrote but didn’t direct in 2015. Steve Jobs was also a biopic built around three formative speeches (of more accurately moments). But the shortcoming of Molly’s Game is that it’s protagonist despite her high stakes tables lacks the gravitas of Steve Jobs, and we can’t get the same insight into Molly’s motives.

The Good: Chastain, Elba, and Costner give really good performances - and Sorkin shows his talent for writing compelling dialogue as specific scenes from this film (taken in a vacuum) are absolutely brilliant.

The Bad: In a biopic, especially a narrative I think it’s important that the audience either cares about the protagonist is some way, or hates them so much it’s fun to root against them. Molly’s Game fell awkwardly between these two cliffs, and short of what the compelling source material “could have been”.