Aaron Sorkin has the enviable notoriety of being the best film and television screenwriter around, due to his razor-sharp dialogue and tight narrative composition.
He’s also a superb playwright in his own right. Sorkin’s touch can turn the most mundane of circumstances (see “Moneyball”) into pure cinematic gold. With “Molly’s Game,” Sorkin has ventured into a directorial position on top of writing its screenplay, and while he’s mostly successful in both regards, he never quite matches the past highs of his previous award-winning work.
Like many of Sorkin’s other works, “Molly’s Game” is based on a true story.
Jessica Chastain stars front and center as Molly Bloom, a powerful, overachieving young woman who, over a series of years, comes to develop an international high-stakes poker game ring between celebrities, business tycoons, mobsters and the like. While this main series of events is told mostly in narrated flashback, another story unravels in the relative present as Bloom fights a court case from the United States government over her technically not illegal, but also not quite legal dealings.
With two colliding timelines, the film unfolds mostly retrospectively, and “Molly’s Game” is made up of probably no less than an unusual amount of 60 percent voice-over work. The film shapes up well enough with this mixed chronology, and Chastain certainly pulls her weight all the way through, both on and off the screen.
It’s an interesting way to present the narrative.
Though I often felt like I was watching an extended movie trailer — a very lengthy, nearly two-and-a-half-hour-long trailer. There’s lots of explanation and exposition shuffled intermittently throughout the film, which could have gotten grating if not for Sorkin’s brilliant writing. This stylistic choice makes for a neat first impression. Although it does get somewhat tiring after the third or so time it’s used more so after that.
While competently told, the film as a whole suffers from these awkward storytelling roots.
The retrospective narrative style isn’t bad, but being told what’s going on isn’t nearly as engaging as experiencing the story as a pure spectator. “The Social Network,” my favorite of Sorkin’s work, is similarly structured to “Molly’s Game,” but it played out better due to its unobtrusive narrative voice.”The Social Network” made it clear it was a story about Mark Zuckerberg, but not Mark Zuckerberg’s story.
Where it falters in its composition, “Molly’s Game” is strong in its execution. Chastain nails the part of Bloom, trading in some of her usually steely exterior for some well explored vulnerability. It’s a juicy role, and Chastain goes beyond the film’s narrative flaws to deliver a truly great performance.
Chastain is also surrounded by a very strong supporting cast, including Idris Elba, Michael Cera, and Kevin Costner. Elba brings the goods — as expected, of course — as Bloom’s lawyer, and I’d vouch for supporting an Oscar role for the guy. While his time on screen is brief, Cera leaves an unusually insidious impression as Player X, an undisclosed celebrity actor who takes joy in crushing his opponents’ morale in poker games. It was a great turn of character for Cera that did not go unappreciated by me.
With the movie revolving so tightly around Bloom, Sorkin may have felt some direct psychological insight into her character was needed, and Costner fills that role as Bloom’s psychologist and father. Costner held his own against all these other great performances, though his subplot ends up feeling a little extra in the film’s already long runtime. Much of Costner’s dialogue also repeats character beats regarding Bloom that are already easily deduced in the narrative, and with an expert like Sorkin penning the script, it felt unusual for such extraneous detail to be added in.
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Sorkin has proven he’s a more than competent director with “Molly’s Game.” With a strong lead and supporting cast as well as crisp, snappy direction, the film mostly overcomes its weaker script, but it also lacks concentration and brevity. While the film is an overall success, it doesn’t quite live up to Sorkin’s high standard of excellence.
B+
Hector Valverede is a culture reporter with the Daily Lobo. He primarily writes movie reviews. He can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @hpvalverde.
