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“Molly’s Game”

Posted on August 22, 2020August 30, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “Molly’s Game,” August 22, 2020 (2017), Netflix.  Our daughter Bronwen recommended this one to us and we caught it last night.  A good, solid, based-on-a-true-story film.   It is also an excellent film about father-daughter relationships where the parent demands fealty, total commitment, and over-achievement from their child.   I wonder if there was a message in this from my daughter in California.  This Aaron Sorkin film is well written, well directed, and very well acted. Molly Dubin Bloom’s (Jessica Chastain) is a brilliant, beautiful young woman, seemingly on top of every situation.   No heavy emoting here.  She is in charge, except when she’s not.  She had a world-class career as a freestyle skier until it was done in by a terrible accident.  She could have done anything after that.  She chose to go to LA where jobs as a waitress and assistant to an egomaniac entrepreneur led her to high stakes poker games that she began to run, first in LA and then in NYC.  Not surprisingly, this also led her to some rather poor lifestyle choices, dealings with unsavory characters including both the Russian mob and Mafia, and eventually an arrest on federal racketeering charges.  This story moves back and forth between the personal backstory, the games, the players, the trials, and her amazing lawyer (Idris Elba—is there anything he doesn’t do brilliantly?) Elba is the film’s emotional voice but he’s also a father who is pushing his own daughter in a manner reminiscent of Bloom’s experience.  The pace is swift, the story line compelling, the acting excellent– including the smaller roles–and the movie works.  It is a very compelling film. Nice work by Kevin Costner as her driven, overwhelmingly demanding University professor father who brutally pushes his children to succeed and be the best even as he betrays his wife and family.  He has matured nicely as a character actor.   Many reviewers were disappointed with the narration provided by Bloom’s character.   I wasn’t.  Instead, I really enjoyed the film and the tale it tells.

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