Molly's Game

Jessica Chastain plays Molly Bloom, former aspiring olympic downhill skier who crashed out of the sport and needed something to do. She lucked into a personal assistant job where she was able to manage a high stakes poker game, and basically made her entire income from tips. When things went sour with her boss, she moves to New York to set up her own game and gets caught up in the wrong crowd leading to her eventual arrest for illegal gaming. The story is told mostly in flashback as discussion with her lawyers reveals the history. While not anything near the complexity of the late 2000's housing crisis, this film had a feel very much like The Big Short. I will say that as a written and directed by Aaron Sorkin film, I expected lots of wandering the hallways, long dialogue scenes a la West Wing. And sort of got it in the form of long monologue voiceover from Chastain. But somehow it seemed appropriate and was not distracting or annoying. I learned quite a bit about gaming and poker, and Chastain was excellent as basically the entire show (voiceover and all). 

4 stars (out of 5)