Quite a good movie

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2018)

Aaron Sorkin's snappy script and his assured direction make for an interesting tale about a young woman's foray into the tough, risky world of elite high stakes poker. I know nothing about poker, and am not interested in it, but Sorkin keeps you interested through multiple characters, camera angles and graphics. Often, narration in a movie can be bad, but it works here, as Molly (Jessica Chastain) reminisces back in time about how she became a wealthy hostess, and what went wrong, leading to her being charged in an FBI swoop on gambling houses.
As her lawyer, Idris Alba is great - trying to get to the truth beyond her tales of her past.
Woven through the main plot is Molly's troubled relationship with her Dad - when she was a rising skiing star, he was harsh and demanding of Molly.
Kevin Costner is great as the Dad.
They do find a bit of healing at the end.
Molly seems to get off lightly, considering she did some questionable things - including hosting players linked to the mafia and running illegal gambling games. And watching gambling addicts play well beyond any sensible amount and lose obscene amounts of money. .
I doubt she was really as naive as she is portrayed in the movie. Also, for legal reasons, there would be many parts of Molly's story that we don't have access to.
As well as drugs, Molly became kind of addicted to gambling herself - both to the money she made, and also the intoxicating power of directing elaborate poker nights, and socialising with, and manipulating the rarefied circles of super rich businessmen who played cards for cash.
When she was pushed out of the LA scene, she moved to New York and flourished, but also attracted mafia thugs.
Her life struck me as very hollow and cold. I guess she does realise this. It would be interesting to see what she did next.