Award-winning dramas coming to our screens
AWARD-winning scriptwriter, Aaron Sorkin will be making his directorial debut with a gripping fast-paced drama about the life of Olympic skier and underground gambling queen, Molly Bloom.
Jessica Chastain plays Bloom, a stunningly beautiful, competitive sportswoman, who also ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade, before being arrested in April 2013 by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons.
She was referred to as the “go-to girl” Hollywood hotshots called to run high-stakes card games where $2 million was won or lost in the blink of an eye. When the FBI rained on her parade, Bloom was charged with profiting from hosting illegal poker games and eventually admitted to being a key figure in an illegal $100m high stakes gambling ring. She was fined $125 000 and sentenced to a year’s probation.
Filled with high suspense, the movie shows how Bloom tried to protect her players – which included Hollywood royalty, sports stars and business moguls – during the court case that followed.
Things got even more complicated when she realised the Russian mob was also involved. Her only ally turned out to be her criminal defence lawyer, Charlie Jaffrey, played by Idris Elba, who soon learned there was much more to the high-flying woman than the tabloids led the public to believe.
Sorkin’s box office hits include The Social Network, Steve Jobs, Moneyball, The American President and A Few Good Men. He adapted the script for Molly’s Game from Bloom’s book and memoirs and delivers a striking version of her story for the big screen.
The film, launched at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, has already notched up a number of awards, including two Career Achievement Awards for Sorkin, at the Zurich Film Festival as well as the Denver International Film Festival. It was also named the Audience Favourite at the Mill Valley Film Festival.
Chastain, not only an acclaimed actress but a producer, is wellknown for movies like Zero Dark Thirty, Interstellar, The Martian, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and Miss Sloane. Critics have lauded her performance as Bloom and she’s tipped to win an award or two for what they say is a stellar role. Elba (American Gangster, Thor, Pacific Rim, Star Trek Beyond) and the multi award-winning Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Tin Cup, The Postman, Message in a Bottle, The Guardian) are also said to be highly impressive in their supporting roles. The cast also includes Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong and Justin Kirk.
The movie will be released in cinemas on Friday.
Coming your way on January 19 is Breathe, directed by Andy Serkis. It tells the story of Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), whose life changed irrevocably when he was 28 and paralysed by polio in Africa. He was given only a few months to live.
His wife Diane (Claire Foy) took over when he virtually gave up hope, giving him the strength to go on in what is referred to as “an inspiring love story”. Against all advice, Diana brought him home from hospital where her devotion and witty determination transcended his disability.
Together, they refused to be imprisoned by his suffering, dazzling others with their humour, courage and lust for life. Clever technology makes it possible for Robin to get out of bed and experience new adventures, and enables him to become an advocate for disabled people across the world. The film also stars Tom Hollander as Robin’s twin brother and Hugh Bonneville as groundbreaking inventor, Teddy Hall.
The film, produced by the couple’s son Jonathan Cavendish, and which marks Serkis’s directorial debut, to date has received mixed reviews; but Foy’s performance is lauded and it’s been referred to as a “soft square slab of British heritage filmmaking, bathed in buttery light nearly as golden as the awards it’s targeting”.
On the other side of the coin, New York Times’ critic Jeanette Catsoulis writes: “This exceptional life is smothered by a cloying fairytale romance that turns every challenge the couple faces into a lark.”
Finally, watch out for I, Tonya scheduled for release on local silver screens on February 16.
Starring Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Sebastian Stan, Caitlin Carver, Paul Walter Hauser and directed by Craig Gillespie, it’s the true-life story of former figure-skating champion, Tonya Harding.
Well on her way to becoming one of the world’s biggest ice skating legends, her dreams and career were shattered by her alleged association with an infamous, ill-conceived and even more poorly executed attack on fellow Olympic competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, by her ex-husband and bodyguard.
A darkly comedic drama, it tells the tale of a talented sports star whose success is destroyed by her troubled childhood, her mother’s abuse and her stormy relationships.
Critics lauded Chastain as Molly Bloom and she’s tipped to win an award or two for what they say is a stellar role