For those who follow ideological conflicts on the Croatian internet, the end of 2017 and the start of 2018 were marked by an unusually fierce clash between the owners of two portals who liked to declare themselves as liberals. The nominal reason for the showdown between these alleged like-minded individuals was a diametrically opposed understanding of personal freedoms, particularly those concerning control over one’s own body and finances, in situations frowned upon by the conservative segment of the public but deemed ‘victimless crimes’ by the more liberal faction. Coincidentally, around the same time, a film tackling similar themes appeared in Croatian cinemas. Molly’s Game, a title which domestic distributors translated with their usual creativity as The Big Game, will likely attract less attention for its story than for who adapted it and how.
The story told in Molly's Game is based on a scandal reminiscent of those that, several decades earlier, would have spurred the production of competing TV movies on American networks. In 2013, the FBI conducted one of its most spectacular operations, dismantling a criminal organisation running illegal poker games. This alone would not have drawn significant attention had the players not included Hollywood superstars like Tobey Maguire and Ben Affleck, as well as top athletes and oligarchs from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Even greater interest was sparked by the fact that the individual identified by US federal authorities as the mastermind behind this shady operation was Molly Bloom, a relatively young and attractive woman whom the media immediately dubbed the ‘Poker Princess’. Partly in an effort to fund her legal defence, she decided to share her experiences with the public through an autobiography that became a bestseller and caught the attention of Aaron Sorkin, one of Hollywood’s most respected screenwriters, whose previous scripts had also been biographies of business figures such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs.
The titular heroine is portrayed by Jessica Chastain, who has been particularly active in 2010s. The narrative framework centres on her arrest and subsequent visit to lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), whom she attempts to persuade to represent her, recounting her life story for this purpose. She grew up as the daughter of a distinguished psychologist (Kevin Costner) in Colorado, who encouraged his children to channel all their energy into achieving success; one brother became a respected doctor, the other an Olympic skiing champion. Molly also attempted to become an Olympic freestyle skiing champion but was injured during qualifications for the Salt Lake City Olympics, forcing her to abandon sports for another career. Her path led her to Los Angeles, where, working as a waitress at the elite Viper Room nightclub, she caught the attention of a guest who first hired her as a secretary and later enlisted her help in organising poker games. Initially clueless about the game, Molly quickly became a top professional thanks to Google, using her charm to attract the most elite clients willing to hand out lavish tips. This not only secured her a comfortable lifestyle but also provided the capital to launch her own operation after her boss fired her. After Los Angeles, she moved to New York, where she set up a similar yet more refined and lucrative operation, though, as circumstances would have it, among her clients and potential business partners were ‘respected business figures’ who, in reality, belonged to the Russian mafia.
For Sorkin, who has collaborated with some of the most renowned directors in his career, The Big Game marked his directorial debut. In many ways, this film is a quintessentially ‘Sorkinesque’ production; even those who don’t pay much attention to the names in the credits would recognise the hand of the writer behind titles such as The Social Network and The West Wing. Naturally, the dialogue is the most intriguing, inventive, and captivating part of the screenplay, providing audiences with pleasure even if it eventually becomes clear that the verbal gymnastics employed by the characters are unlike anything used by almost anyone in real life. However, this pleasure is one of the film’s few strengths, as the screenplay is undermined from the outset by a serious flaw. The plot, for one, is not particularly engaging. It unfolds through flashbacks, beginning at the point where Molly’s primary concern is how to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, with her central dilemma being how much she is willing to ‘rat out’ her former partners and friends to Uncle Sam, thereby ruining their lives. This means that everything that happens prior to this—her encounters and other interactions with drunks, gambling addicts, and various types of criminal scum—holds no such drastic consequences for our heroine that she wouldn’t, years later, be posing glamorously on magazine covers. The second, far more serious issue is that Molly’s dilemma—whether to ‘sing’ to the feds or not—is, according to her own words, motivated by claims that she wants to save others’ careers and marriages, rather than, as more astute viewers might deduce, a justified fear of incurring the wrath of ‘respected business figures’. Sorkin fully adopts Molly’s version of events and is not particularly convincing in doing so. Matters worsen when Molly attempts to explain the downfall of her business empire by claiming that maintaining it drove her to turn to various modern chemical achievements. The addiction motif and the poor business and life decisions tied to it are, however, merely glossed over and almost ignored, likely because Sorkin doubted it would fit well with his story of a feminist heroine who managed, for a time at least, to carve out a career in something that is the exclusive domain of male chauvinist pigs.
The structural and content-related problems of Molly's Game are exacerbated by the fact that, as a director, Sorkin may have learned something from the filmmakers he had previously written scripts for, but he failed to rein in his ego. Or, to be more precise, he was too enamoured with his own work, particularly his dialogue, to allow anyone to cut it down in the editing room. As a result, Molly's Game is simply too long, and viewers who aren’t among Sorkin’s most ardent fans have good reason to wait for the film’s release on platforms where they can fast-forward through less engaging sections. That said, this doesn’t mean there aren’t some genuinely interesting scenes within its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. The best of these are those where Molly, as the narrator, attempts to convey fascinating details of relatively obscure activities like skiing or poker to the uninitiated in an engaging and captivating manner. The acting is, of course, top-notch, though the hyper-prolific Chastain will likely be remembered more for parading in a deep décolletage for most of the film. Costner delivers far more in the rather thankless role of Molly’s father, including an emotional scene towards the end that feels tailor-made for Oscar bait. The rest of the cast is solid, with particular praise due to Irish comedian Chris O’Dowd as one of Molly’s most colourful clients.
However, perhaps the most lamentable aspect of Molly's Game is that Sorkin failed to harness his talent to highlight, through this fascinating story, what truly constitutes the real problem in America and the world. And that is certainly not a lack of etiquette or chivalrous manners among financially cushioned ‘whales’ who can afford to lose in a single night at the poker table what ordinary mortals earn over decades. The real issue—which the protagonist even acknowledges in one scene—is that US federal authorities deem the disposal of one’s own money through gambling a crime. And not just any crime, but one severe enough that the administration of such a ‘cool’ and progressive president as Obama (under whose presidency the film’s events take place) would dispatch a special forces unit capable of taking on an ISIS cell to apprehend a lone, unarmed woman. Similarly, federal authorities, under the guise of fighting organised crime, have been granted powers to confiscate people’s property, leaving individuals literally destitute overnight—not to stop actual criminal activity, but to drive the newly created poverty-stricken into ‘snitching’ on the innocent and guilty alike, in a manner not unlike how people were once sent to the Gulags. And, as in Animal Farm, some ‘comrades’ are ‘more equal than others’ when it comes to the risk of such a fate, as highlighted by Molly’s line that what she supposedly owed Uncle Sam is nothing compared to what Wall Street players plunder every second. Precisely because it reminds the audience, even if only momentarily, of this issue, Molly's Game, despite being a disappointment in many respects, deserves a recommendation.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version was posted here.)
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