Molly's Game (Aaron Sorkin)

[TGM]

MOLLY'S GAME

Director: Aaron Sorkin

imdb

[TGM]

This movie was sort of embarrassing to watch. If ever you wanted to see Aaron Sorkin masturbate to his own writing for two hours, look no further!

[Watashi]

Great movie.

I love watching Aaron Sorkin masturbate.

[Ezee E]

Pretty good movie unless it's dealing with the family issues. Surprised that Costner didn't use Sorkin's dialog well. Ditto Cera.

But Chastain was a pro, and I liked most of it.

[Ezee E]

Wasn't surprised when I found out that Player X was mostly Tobey Maguire.

[Mal]

It starts out fine but Chastain is working overtime on this and you don't notice how much until the last third just falls apart and shows this movie to be inept as fuck. Beyond the narration, this movie has no style. Sorkin should not direct, period.

[Pop Trash]

Engaging, but sooo Sorkin-y. Voiceovers on top of monologues on top of breathless rapid fire exchanges between Chastain and Elba where one says a witty bon mot before the other even has a chance to finish *their* witty bon mot. It gets exhausting and I think at least 20 minutes could have been shaved off w/o losing too much. Is this screenplay the size of a phone book? Quantity doesn't necessarily mean quality, too. The Last Jedi had more memorable lines with twice the verbal brevity.

I think someone like David Fincher on The Social Network (which I love) has enough clout to shape and rein in some of Sorkin's indulgences. Plus he can direct the hell out of a movie and create some much needed breathers and atmosphere, which is often lacking in Molly's Game.

It's not bad, though, and the acting is stellar across the board. Some clever bits of editing as well.

[DavidSeven]

I actually read Bloom's book before I ever knew it was being adapted into a film. I wouldn't have expected this type of story to be something that suited Sorkin's style, and after seeing the film, I think that opinion holds. Too many of the book's essential elements are reshaped and wedged into Sorkin's comfort zone. A loose, entertaining, tabloid-y read becomes something that feels strained as the material overextends itself to fit inside Sorkin's box. Sure, the constant world-trivia nuggets make some sense when they're being used as analogies to explain technological advances in movies about Apple and Facebook. Here, it becomes apparent that Sorkin's obsession with Googled facts might actually be more of a crutch than anything else.

The daughter/flawed dad dynamic, which is an increasingly recurring element in Sorkin's work, is also a complete invention for the movie. And it's one that really doesn't help the story at all.

Nevertheless, as with most of Sorkin's film and TV work, it's certainly entertaining enough. But Sorkin desperately needs a director to refine the edges. How is this film, which has a pretty contained story, 20 minutes longer than either The Social Network or Steve Jobs? If you think about the scope of those respective stories, that should be impossible. Inexplicably, the film goes overlong despite opening with -- what has to be -- the longest stretch of "explain the whole backstory" voiceover I've ever seen.

[Peng]

My memory of Moneyball is pretty fuzzy apart from feeling of mild admiration. Thus, putting that film asides, I find this Sorkin's weakest script this decade, maybe because he doesn't have any restriction imposed upon himself this time (The Social Network's script being written in concurrent with Ben Mezrich's then uncompleted source book; Steve Jobs' centering theatrically around three product launch events), so even his usual, dazzlingly dense verbal back-and-forth can get repetitive at several points. Also, I really don't have that much problem with Jobs' last scene, but it's almost hilariously perverse how he doubles down all its daddy-issue criticism into pure thematic spelling-out in Molly's psychoanalyzing scene here. I often heard about it being the film's worst scene, but even then I hadn't expected Costner to just state the scene's intent upfront (though it's salvaged a bit by Costner's cool demeanor turning emotionally messy). But at this point you embrace Sorkin-ism along with its bad tics or you don't, and having Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba hacking it out in his dialogue at different temperaments, along with Chastain being terrific in general throughout, is just too irrestiable for me. 7.5/10