Molly's Game

Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut is fast, swift and snappy just like his writing is from scene to scene to scene! There's abundant energy in the writing that constantly keeps you on drugs! Classic Sorkin!

In a story drawn from Molly Bloom's book with certain events that happened after she's published the autobiography dovetailed to it, Molly's Game is for sure a uniquely adapted screenplay in that regard. A fair amount of the dialogues and arguments are fantastic. Sorkin's extraordinary talent in telling a story visually through words is charming as always, such as the scene where Charlie (Idris Elba) hops from seat-to-seat signaling his indecisiveness. The 3-minute therapy session coming to a full circle in identifying Molly's inner conflict was well done up to the part before the dad and daughter break into tears.

We follow our protagonist played by Jessica Chastain in her journey of supposed greatness but actual failures. How she learns the poker trade via wins, losses, recruitments and people met are definitely interesting. But oh boy, did it get exhausting quick! It doesn't take long for us to realize that the plot winds and sifts through games after games after games before finally arriving to a point of change in the hero's life. It's lengthy, laborious and tiring!

There are more ups than downs in the protagonist's story, and none of it seem to be a big conflict or failure for the main character, making it hard for us to care for her. The part where she starts betraying the law fuels the proceeding a bit, but the same issue persists. A movie's made three times - writing, shooting and editing. The director in Aaron Sorkin didn't transliterate the script well enough for it to work cent-per-cent effectively on film.

Casting Samantha Isler as younger Molly was a good call as the actress resembled Jessica Chastain. While most of the editing was brisk to keep up with the nature of the screenplay, the slow-mo drag during the mob attack sequence is lousy.