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Drama - US

MOLLY’S GAME (2018 in Spain)

Duration 2h 20m Rating (UK) 15
Source of story A book: Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker by Molly Bloom
Writers/Script Aaron Sorkin
Additional Info Apparently real poker players were used in the film as extras and were paid $90 per day, but played poker with the actors between takes, considerably enhancing their income.
Director Aaron Sorkin
Starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Chris O’Dowd, Graham Greene
Elevator Pitch A talented skier is sidelined due to accident and becomes a waitress in LA, where she meets and goes to work for a businessman who holds a high stakes poker game once a week. She becomes the organiser, and then starts her own game. Later she is ousted by one of the players and moves to New York where she gets a game for even higher stakes going, but she is raided by the FBI and must defend herself in court.
Content There is a lot of poker (in fact the film is mostly poker), helped a bit by on screen presentation of the hands. There is skiing and the accident, and quite a bit of time in the lawyer’s office, then inteviews with the FBI and court appearance. For the duration of the film almost constant voice-over. There is a bit of violence.
A View There was too much poker and too much voice-over for me, making the film seem like a very lengthy exposition, although I admit that I have no knowledge of the game at all, so perhaps I missed the point. It was quite well liked by the critics – perhaps they know about poker – and has been Oscar nominated for best adapted screenplay. So there we go, if you like poker it might be for you.

About Victor R Gibson

Author of this site three technical books and two novels

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  1. Pingback: The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2022 in Spain) | A MOTION PICTURE LIST - February 14, 2022

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