Molly's Game

Saw Molly's Game, a based-on-a-true-story film about a failed Olympic skier who becomes the organizer of a celebrity-studded, high-stakes, poker game.  This is another Sorkin film in my mini-Sorkin-marathon, so it's another rat-a-tat film that celebrates drive, success, and business acumen.  As with his other films, this one is a fun and gripping film, but ultimately resolves a messy, real-life situation with a bit of pat pop-psychology (daddy issues.)  All in all it's a fun movie though.

As with other Sorkin films, the protagonist here is ambitious and business-minded.  Although it's unclear how much money she made off of the game, she dealt with hundreds of millions and hobnobbed with the greatest modern nobility.  Her intelligence is established via an opening voice-over, listing her LSAT scores and her MBA degree.  At one point however, there's a very interesting line that she narrates to us: "I was raised to be a champion. My goal was to win. At what and against whom, those were just details."  This indicates that she is driven but driven to what is acknowledged to be unimportant and unclear.

I wonder how much Sorkin is in on this observation.  His films often study famous, driven people, but what they are driven to is often only self-enrichment.  I feels that the question of "what was it all for?" goes unasked but looms silently and heavily over Sorkin's films.  Often the characters are revealed to have used their awesome drive for misguided ends and we descend into some disappointing-feeling "true" goal they should have striven for (family, children, etc) like it's a family comedy from the 1980s.  The entire rest of the film however is spent watching these brilliant, successful people achieve more fame and glory and money and rattle off dazzling quips with their friends or assistants or whatever.  After this, the endings seem like a coming down to earth, a return to conventional morality and normalcy.

But themes and whatnot aside, the film if good fun to watch.  It's fun seeing drunk rich dudes make crazy bets and pull crazy stunts like bringing a Monet painting as collateral.  We also get to see a smug, grinning Michael Cera stand in for some big-name celebrity at the poker game.  I loved seeing him play a heel - dressing down the other players and insulting Molly.  It's Michael Cera!  The protagonist woman is softened a bit by Jessica Chastain, who plays her with a deceptive, deer-in-the-headlights coyness.

It's a good film with a somewhat weak ending.  The script is tight, themes are present, and there's a nice answer-key delivered at the end, so no one has to feel left out.  The rise to power is fun to watch, even as we know the denouement is coming (the film opens with Molly being prosecuted by the FBI.)  A ripping Sorkin film.