Molly’s Game

A young woman (Jessica Chastain) runs a very high-stakes poker game and fights hard to stay above the law, sometimes failing. Molly’s Game goes over the origins of the game along with the litigation that follows.

Aaron Sorkin makes his debut as a director here and unsurprisingly it’s a witty script that goes on a bit long. He’s adapting a book of the same name but the film covers the publication of the book and the events that came afterwards (if the film’s timeline is to be believed). That alone is enough to make it stand out among countless other biopics.

However, there are more than a few points where one wonders if Sorkin got a little tired of his own writing style. The scenes with Kevin Costner (playing Molly’s dad) were pretty ropey and the whole film started to become a paint-by-numbers affair as it was wrapping up. Funny that a film with so much padding should get a bit of a rush job in the final third.

Molly’s Game is for the most part stylish and entertaining but alas it’s also instantly forgettable. Perhaps they need to stop getting Jessica Chastain to play the exact same character over and over again.