Cinema Wednesdays - Loris S. Musumeci
«Poker is all about skill.»
Molly Bloom takes to the slopes with strength and determination. From an early age, her father urged her to become a champion mogul skier. By the age of twelve, both her hopes and her back were shattered. Yet, despite doctors' advice to stop practicing high-level sport, she threw herself back into it a year after her operation. With the Olympic Games just around the corner, another accident changed her life. No longer able to play sports, she moved to Los Angeles to study law. In the meantime, the once adored father has turned his back on his daughter, bitterly.
New town, new life. The former skier earns a little money in a stuffy bar. There, she meets a driven businessman. Eager to make a better life for herself, she becomes both his assistant and his servant. There, she is called upon to organize her boss's poker games, where the entire jet set of the game. Encounters abound. One thing led to another and Molly Bloom made a name for herself. She starts organizing her own illegal poker games with wealthy players. Success grows, but misfortune strikes.
Brave ideas
The story is inspired by true events. The real Molly Bloom wrote about them in her memoirs, Molly's Game. The young woman's adventures were undoubtedly most exciting. The film, on the other hand, is not. Aaron Sorkin set out to make a film with good plans and brave ideas; unfortunately, what was supposed to be a «great game» ends up being a «great bore».
The Great Game effectively lasts over two hours, as empty as it is pointless. The key events are set after the first twenty minutes. After that, it's all filler and tedious repetition. Molly Bloom organizes poker games, gets into trouble, but continues her poker nights, then gets into trouble again, so she moves to another location and takes up poker again, and so on. Such a routine could have been carried off well by a work more fleshy and consistent in its style. Here, only failure can be noted.
A daring rhythm
The director has tried to play the rhythm card to feed his repetitions. But the parade of close-ups, from a gambler's cigarette, to chips, to a glass of booze, to Molly's face, is poorly exploited. It doesn't allow the viewer to feel the weight of the vicious circle created by a life of debauchery, because the camera seems to remain impassive to the scenes in front of the lens. In short, there is no life. Not even in scenes where the atmosphere should be the most tense.
Last but not least, the dialogue. Here, too, Aaron Sorkin tried to keep the pace light in form, while revealing a serious undercurrent. A failure! It's unbearable to constantly hear the actors shouting, standing up, sitting down, crossing their arms, grimacing with apparent joy or artificial indignation and cutting off the speaker. Poker didn't just ruin Molly Bloom, it ruined a movie too.
«I'm sick of this circle of degenerates. Fed up with greed.»
Write to the author : loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: © blogspot.com
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