Molly's Game

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has achieved true perfection with his fast-paced dialogue scenes that tear apart powerful people and power structures. In his directorial debut, he tells the true story of “poker princess” Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) — a former skier and Olympic hopeful who organized the world's most exclusive poker tournament for a decade. Molly put all her eggs in one basket – until one night she was arrested by heavily armed FBI agents and now tells her criminal defense attorney Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) the story behind her lucrative business. The players included Hollywood greats, sports stars, industry bosses, and finally – unbeknownst to her – members of the Russian mafia. The lawyer becomes her only ally, discovering that there is much more to Molly than the tabloid press would have us believe... "Monologues, commentary, voice-overs – Aaron Sorkin is the master of the fast-paced, precise, and often cynical art of linguistic communication without pause. And his character Molly goes on the linguistic offensive here just as much as the protagonists of his earlier works. It's his trademark, and here it's also a sign of Molly Bloom's intelligence. Molly is faster than everyone else, she sees through people and systems, she analyzes at lightning speed. So fast that the film sometimes even needs graphs, images, and short explanatory videos so that the viewer can keep up. Because poker is not a game of chance, Molly explains to us, it is one thing above all else: cold calculation. And she knows all about that, having been trained in it since childhood. Winning is what Molly was trained to do, and that is what drives her now." (kino-zeit.de) "A sharply judged edit stitches together three separate timelines, shaping Molly as a complex and razor-sharp character in a world dominated by entitled mansplainers. Forget 'Rounders' -- here's a poker movie to go all-in on." (Time Out)