The odds are high you’ll like it Molly's Game (R13)
140 mins ★★★★
Molly’s Game is a frequently exhilarating screen adaptation of the true story of a young woman who, after her Olympic dreams are shattered, goes on to make a great deal of money and notoriety in the glamorous world of illicit gambling.
Molly Bloom and her father thought she would be a competitive skier, until an accident set her life on another course. The film tracks Molly’s exciting, winner-takes-all trajectory from desperate secretary to hostess of high-stakes poker games, where her guests include rock stars, movie stars, and organised criminals. (The likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire are said to have played, although celebrities of their ilk are merely alluded to in the film.)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Martian) is terrific as the eponymous madam who takes revenge on her misogynist boss by beating him at his own card game.
Chastain is endlessly watchable and conveys a self-contained intelligence which can be seen in real-life talk show footage of the real Molly. Less impressive is Idris Elba as Bloom’s lawyer, who seems to have lost his brilliance from The Wire somewhere on the snowy peaks of the dreadful The Mountain Between Us.
But the vibrancy and verve of the movie is mostly down to writerdirector Aaron Sorkin, who makes a solid directorial debut out of his own screenplay, after years of making his name writing other people’s awardwinning movies and TV.
The film makes little pretence of being highbrow or particularly cinematic in its crafting (though its editing matches the speedy dialogue), but as a pacey tell-all it’s a fascinating and entertaining watch. For a fun night out, your ticket price is worth the gamble. –Sarah Watt