Why Molly’s Game Is a Movie That Is About So Much More Than Just Poker

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If you’ve been to the cinema lately or watched national television, you may have been presented with the impressive and high-power trailer for Molly’s Game. Molly’s Game is a movie that has recently been released in the US.

The movie is based on the memoir by Molly Bloom, called Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker. The movie features an all-star cast with Jessica Chastain playing the lead with supporting actors including Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, and Michael Cera.

A Man’s Game

Poker has always been a man’s game. In fact, women in gambling only became vaguely acceptable with the rise of Las Vegas casinos in the 1930s but even then, concern was shown to women to women who were heavily involved in gambling. And even now in 2018, poker tables are mostly filled with men.

So Molly’s story is truly fascinating for many reasons but one of those reasons is definitely because she was one of the few major female game changers in the game of poker and gambling in general. She ran the most successful and exclusive poker games in NYC and LA for over a decade, before she was finally found out and arrested by the FBI. Molly is the sort of complicated, strong and highly calculating character that we have so often seen played by men so it comes as a timely relief that we see a female in such a role.

Responses and Critiques

The response to Molly’s Game has been overwhelmingly positive. In Rolling Stone magazine it was given a rating of 3 out of 4 and the aggregate percent on Rotten Tomatoes currently sits at an impressive 81%. Polls on Cinema Score gave Molly’s Game a very good A+ rating.

It seems as if the public have been thoroughly entertained by this two-hour long movie that provides an inside look into the crazy underground world of poker, and the epic female lead at the center of everything. It will come as no surprise if Molly’s Game gets nominated for a few awards this year!