Molly's Game - Fighting to be treated normally

If there exists one major issue with watching films on planes, it is the fact that the screen is at best something like 8 inches across.  It might be wide screen, and it might be in HD - but it is still only 8 inches.  One of the primary consequences of this is that films emphasising spectacle don't work anywhere near as well as they would on a huge silver screen.  A film needs a story to work on a plane.  A film needs character and heart to work in this format.

Step forward Molly's Game.  Step forward an engaging character study that charts the rise of Molly Bloom, who inveigled herself into the world of high stakes poker games after her dreams of making the Olympic ski jumping team were dashed by injury.  The story is real, and the real life Bloom really did start work as a cocktail waitress before stealing players away from her employer and living the American Dream on her own terms.  She then really did get busted by the authorities who ultimately couldn't find anything she had done wrong, other than be a woman trying to do in American society what men have been doing for decades.

Jessica Chastain looks amazing in an ever-changing procession of expensive cocktail dresses and designer shoes.  I'm very sure that Idris Elba (playing her lawyer) also looks great in his perfectly-turned out suits, but I wasn't really paying attention to that.  She is an actress with extra-ordinary charisma who I hope continues to be cast is roles that require as much.

Ultimately the story is about a woman who just wanted to be given the same opportunities as everyone else, and then be treated the same regardless of if it went right or wrong.  But of course society gets in the way, a society that cannot accept how an attractive well-dressed woman can succeed without somehow being either on the take or sleeping her way to the top.  It's a story that happens every day in our world, a story of a woman having to answer questions, make decisions and take chances that a man would never have to deal with.  With Hollywood having experienced something of a self-reflexive moment recently in the light of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, it is a story that certainly hits a contemporary nerve in the industry.

The only criticism I have of the story is after all Molly's independence and fight to ensure her place in the world on her own terms, her redemption is handed down to her by a courtroom judge - a man.  But then I suppose in doing this the film remains rooted in the real world, a world that remains run by men.  We've come a long way, but there's still a long road ahead.