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Jessica Chastain knows how to talk a good game

Molly's Game. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba and Kevin Costner. Trailer . Rating: 6 (out of 10).
Molly's Game
Jessica Chastain plays the title character Molly Bloom in Molly’s Game.

Molly's Game. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Starring Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba and Kevin Costner. Trailer. Rating: 6 (out of 10).

Who would’ve thought a decade or so ago that you could turn on your TV at any given time of day and tune in to a bunch of guys sitting around a table playing cards?

Movies, too, have attempted to make the world’s spiciest card game seem something other than blancmange-bland to viewers at home, with mostly middling results. First-time director and seasoned chatterbox Aaron Sorkin aims to remedy this by talking over the game incessantly.

Thank goodness it’s Jessica Chastain doing the talking. The talented, shift-on-a-dime actress is by far the best choice to play the role of Molly Bloom, an Olympic hopeful who shifts her laser focus to the high-stakes poker world after a catastrophic injury.

She starts off by crashing on a friend’s couch in LA, personal assistant to a needy jerk (Jeremy Strong) who is prone to throwing insults and actual items at Molly with regularity. Molly, immune to such treatment thanks to being raised by a demanding jerk of a father (Kevin Costner), ducks and dodges. One of her duties is to tally the wins and losses at her boss’s weekly poker game, attended by Hollywood insiders and celebrities including Player X (roughly based on Tobey Maguire, reportedly, and played with the impenetrable smirk of Michael Cera). She is a quick study of the game, gives herself a trash-glam makeover, and makes a fortune in tips.

When her boss has a temper tantrum and boots her out, Molly moves to New York and hosts her own weekly game. The L.A. game took place in a dark, dank club; Molly’s game takes place at a luxury hotel suite with a buy-in of $250,000. The game features a few regulars, high rollers and some sad-sack losers, plus one love-struck drunkard (Chris O’Dowd). It’s pretty much a 24-hour operation: Molly starts taking pills to help her stay awake, and pills to get to sleep for a few hours.

And with that kind of money changing hands, is it any wonder that some of the sweet guys around Molly’s table turn out to be Russian mobsters, or that Molly ends up with more than a dozen FBI agents with machine guns swarming her apartment?

Apparently it’s legal to host a poker game, but not legal to skim a little off the top to protect yourself against losses. “The People of the United States vs Molly Bloom” is a hefty charge, and Molly needs a powerhouse lawyer. She shows up at the office of Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba), discreetly shuffling a tabloid with her photo on it to the bottom of the stack in the waiting room. He thinks she’s guilty, but ends up defending her anyway, despite the fact that his impressionable young daughter keeps wandering in and out of the office. In Sorkin fashion, the two argue more than they strategize, and banter stands in for conversation. 

It’s a man’s world, but Molly proves a formidable force. It’s an amoral arena, but Molly won’t compromise her morals when it comes to naming names. And thank you, Mr. Sorkin: in spite of the roulette of skimpy, sparkly costume changes demanded by her sexy-on-the-surface lifestyle, Molly keeps her clothes on. It’s a small but important victory for modern heroines everywhere.

Yet despite all the drama, Molly’s Game is still a little soulless. Blame all the voiceover exposition, blame the silly ice-rink scene between Chastain and Costner, blame the nature of the game itself. But maybe it’s just the fact that Molly Bloom was no Erin Brockovich in the morality department, and her story - though interesting - doesn’t warrant over two hours of our sympathy.