I haven't been watching any movies lately, but I'm thinking of going on another movie binge soon. And that's due to my finally having watched a new movie last night, and it happened to be one near the top of my to-see list:
Molly's Game.
So did anyone actually see Molly's Game?
I did man. Didn't dig. I think even you'd be disappointed. Bit of a mess, really.
I wouldn't use the word disappointed to describe my reaction to it, but that's only because my expectations weren't crazy high. I expected it to be really good, as everything from Sorkin is, but I wasn't expecting
Steve Jobs. In the end, I didn't
love it, but I did like it a lot.
For me, my biggest problem was that, for as often as Sorkin has written flawed lead characters (Zuckerberg in
The Social Network, Will McAvoy in
The Newsroom, and Steve Jobs at the top of the list), this was the first time that I didn't actually respect or identify with the lead character and find dignity, intelligence, and courage in their troubled nature. Molly dealt with her tough break poorly, made years worth of idiotic decisions, put herself in terrible situations, and then propped herself up with the most offensive definition of success I've ever heard uttered. So, morally speaking, this was the first time I wasn't right there with Sorkin and his lead.
That distance was increased even more by Sorkin's perversion of
The Crucible as the means by which to achieve Molly's "salvation." Not only did DDL do that "because it's my name" so well that watching anyone else even try to do it instantly becomes sad and pathetic, there is more honor and dignity in John Proctor's impassioned speech about his name than you could measure whereas there's only a fraction in Molly's version and a fraction that's so small that it's actually difficult to measure.
I also wasn't crazy about the structure. I don't know if this is getting at what you thought made the film a mess,
Ricky, but I didn't like the voice-over from who knows when telling a flashback that has its own flashbacks. I think Sorkin "overwrote" the script a little. I actually think that it would've been better if she would've truly been in it with Idris Elba and it was the two of them working together and she was telling the voice-over to him as they were working out their defense.
Now, if those are the cons, then the pros are obviously the performances. I think that Jessica Chastain is hot (I have eyes after all) but I've never thought of her as an especially talented actress. This was easily her best performance, though, and she definitely deserved accolades and acclaim. Idris Elba has been able to count me as a fan ever since I watched
Luther and realized that he's the black British version of Christopher Meloni's SVU character Elliot Stabler and he was great here. But I think it was Kevin Costner who stole the show.
I don't know about you,
Ricky, but I can always "feel" when actors are "Sorkin specialists." It's like when a Samuel L. Jackson or a Michael Madsen shows up in Tarantino land. They just belong there. Bradley Whitford belongs in Sorkin land, Jeff Daniels belongs in Sorkin land, and, as it turns out, Costner belongs there with them. Chastain and Elba did great work, but Costner lives there and I was pleasantly surprised by the fantastic performance he turned in.
So yeah, not Sorkin's best by any means, but a solid film and an above-average directorial debut for sure.