Review of Molly's Game (2017) by Wayne K — 25 Feb 2018

I have something of a love/hate relationship with Aaron Sorkin films. One the one hand they're brimming with snappy dialogue and humorous banter, on the other they're verbose to the point of nausea and have little time for reflection.

Molly's Game, which sees him moving into the director's chair, shows no signs of reigning in his interminable chatter. I had more than one flashback to The Big Short, another film that clobbered us over the head with full-throttle dialogue.

You go to the cinema to be entertained, not to be lectured, and since Sorkin has lapped up the chance to explain every single in and out of poker, gambling and the courtroom process, we know everything about what our heroine does but not who she is.

Jessica Chastain is a great actress but is saddled with more narration than every Terrence Malick film combined, and much of it is just tedious explaining, especially of things which we're witnessing right in front of our eyes, as if Sorkin doesn't think we can see as well as hear.

It's nowhere near as funny as he wants it to be, and rapidly becomes tiresome and laborious. Sorkin has a promising career ahead of him, as well as behind him, but unless he can trim down his ridiculously excess scripts, I'll likely never warm to his work.