I was somewhat curious to see how a writer like Aaron Sorkin would do as a director. Writers often feel agrieved that their vision, or how they saw their script is distorted or brought down by a director. Well, now what happens when a long time experienced writer gets to direct his own material? The script is of course based on a book, so that immediately sets certain parameters for the director, but it's not terribly limiting. Spoilers may follow.
I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was decent. It's interesting however to see that Sorkin the writer dominates over Sorkin the director. As a writer, Sorkin wrote for both TV and features, but primarily for TV. He even does a Masterclass (have not seen/taken it). What can I say - I think that his trademark snappy tit-tat dialogue that can work somewhat in TV drama format, does not work here. It's not as if it hasn't been done before in features - famously the Bacall/Bogart exchanges in The Big Sleep and some other of their films - but those exchanges were in a very specific context of double-entedres where what was going on under the surface was clearly meant with a tongue in cheek purposeful wink. In Molly's Game, by contrast, Sorkin uses it quite straightforwardly, like in the exchanges between Molly and her lawyer, the snappy thing is supposed to simply enliven the exchange of information... and it doesn't work. It doesn't work for many reasons, the primary two of which are (1) the information is quite important, quite complex, and meant to be absorbed, so doing a rapid-fire exchange is not suitable to absorbing complex info, unlike the Bacall/Bogart where it's a game and *just* a game. It goes by too fast with info that's too complex - won't work. Second (2), if you watch the Bacall/Bogart exchanges closely, the director and actors are quite careful about the tempo - I don't know if it was Hawks who engineered this, or the actors, but the exchanges speed is illusory, and achieved by slightly more closely spaced responses with less silent time (without stepping on each others lines) - but they don't *talk* very fast at all... that way, the audience can clearly have enough time to absorb the meaning, while still giving the impression of snappy speed. Sorkin is nowhere near that sophisticated. An additional problem is pure direction - the actors were too far away when delivering those kinds of snappy lines - a mistake by the director. Of course, it's easy to see why he made that mistake - in TV, you are fine with a ton of closeups, while in features you can't overdo that, otherwise it looks like TV and can be headspinning on a large screen in a theater with fast cuts between faces. But then don't write that way for the big screen! Miscalculated and badly executed.
I'm sure the dialogue looked good to Sorkin on the page, but as a director he couldn't pull it off. And he has no one but himself to blame - it's not like he can blame some *other* director, for his dialogue getting lost there. As I said, miscalculated, and badly executed, both. The need to convey info was ever present - look at how Sorkin resorted to *graphics* to explain the importance of certain bets and how he had to do that with both a voiceover and some handless card display, as if suddenly an instructional video was cut into a feature film. Major fail as a director. He had a problem - how to convey the importance and tension of the moment, of that critical hand, to an audience that may not be super familiar with the basics of poker? There are many ways of doing it, including not bothering with the technical details and letting the actors, you know, *act*, and supplement with Molly's VO to indicate the importance and tension (is how I think he should have gone), but I think Sorkin fumbled it here - too much and unnecessary to those who know poker, and not enough for the amateurs (for whom this goes by too quickly to fully absorb anyway) - Sorkin fell betwee two stools and the effect was poor.
There was also poor discipline with sudden inserts that were stylistically at odds with the prevailing aesthetic already established, as if Sorkin did pickups later, because he feared that otherwise points won't be understood. Not impressive.
Overall, the direction was not the greatest, but for a first time effort, much better than a ton of shlock coming out of many so called "established" directors. But that merely speaks to the generally poor levels of directorial skill out there these days, the bar has been lowered, and in this context Sorkin comes out okay-ish.
What rescued the movie was a generally absorbing story and some decent acting - Chastain was quite good, and Idris Alba was back to form (nice to see, as he did a lot of junk in recent years, and his acting suffered IMHO). I like the older Costner! Cera was decent as always, and generally the actors were the best thing here (as is quite often these days, acting is the best thing about subpar films). We live in times of good actors and poor directors.
The DP was a Danish woman, and I've only seen one other feature she did (The Girl On The Train), an interesting choice, I wonder what was behind it.
Overall, 3 stars out of 5 for me. Passable, enjoyable, but that's about it. YMMV.
I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was decent. It's interesting however to see that Sorkin the writer dominates over Sorkin the director. As a writer, Sorkin wrote for both TV and features, but primarily for TV. He even does a Masterclass (have not seen/taken it). What can I say - I think that his trademark snappy tit-tat dialogue that can work somewhat in TV drama format, does not work here. It's not as if it hasn't been done before in features - famously the Bacall/Bogart exchanges in The Big Sleep and some other of their films - but those exchanges were in a very specific context of double-entedres where what was going on under the surface was clearly meant with a tongue in cheek purposeful wink. In Molly's Game, by contrast, Sorkin uses it quite straightforwardly, like in the exchanges between Molly and her lawyer, the snappy thing is supposed to simply enliven the exchange of information... and it doesn't work. It doesn't work for many reasons, the primary two of which are (1) the information is quite important, quite complex, and meant to be absorbed, so doing a rapid-fire exchange is not suitable to absorbing complex info, unlike the Bacall/Bogart where it's a game and *just* a game. It goes by too fast with info that's too complex - won't work. Second (2), if you watch the Bacall/Bogart exchanges closely, the director and actors are quite careful about the tempo - I don't know if it was Hawks who engineered this, or the actors, but the exchanges speed is illusory, and achieved by slightly more closely spaced responses with less silent time (without stepping on each others lines) - but they don't *talk* very fast at all... that way, the audience can clearly have enough time to absorb the meaning, while still giving the impression of snappy speed. Sorkin is nowhere near that sophisticated. An additional problem is pure direction - the actors were too far away when delivering those kinds of snappy lines - a mistake by the director. Of course, it's easy to see why he made that mistake - in TV, you are fine with a ton of closeups, while in features you can't overdo that, otherwise it looks like TV and can be headspinning on a large screen in a theater with fast cuts between faces. But then don't write that way for the big screen! Miscalculated and badly executed.
I'm sure the dialogue looked good to Sorkin on the page, but as a director he couldn't pull it off. And he has no one but himself to blame - it's not like he can blame some *other* director, for his dialogue getting lost there. As I said, miscalculated, and badly executed, both. The need to convey info was ever present - look at how Sorkin resorted to *graphics* to explain the importance of certain bets and how he had to do that with both a voiceover and some handless card display, as if suddenly an instructional video was cut into a feature film. Major fail as a director. He had a problem - how to convey the importance and tension of the moment, of that critical hand, to an audience that may not be super familiar with the basics of poker? There are many ways of doing it, including not bothering with the technical details and letting the actors, you know, *act*, and supplement with Molly's VO to indicate the importance and tension (is how I think he should have gone), but I think Sorkin fumbled it here - too much and unnecessary to those who know poker, and not enough for the amateurs (for whom this goes by too quickly to fully absorb anyway) - Sorkin fell betwee two stools and the effect was poor.
There was also poor discipline with sudden inserts that were stylistically at odds with the prevailing aesthetic already established, as if Sorkin did pickups later, because he feared that otherwise points won't be understood. Not impressive.
Overall, the direction was not the greatest, but for a first time effort, much better than a ton of shlock coming out of many so called "established" directors. But that merely speaks to the generally poor levels of directorial skill out there these days, the bar has been lowered, and in this context Sorkin comes out okay-ish.
What rescued the movie was a generally absorbing story and some decent acting - Chastain was quite good, and Idris Alba was back to form (nice to see, as he did a lot of junk in recent years, and his acting suffered IMHO). I like the older Costner! Cera was decent as always, and generally the actors were the best thing here (as is quite often these days, acting is the best thing about subpar films). We live in times of good actors and poor directors.
The DP was a Danish woman, and I've only seen one other feature she did (The Girl On The Train), an interesting choice, I wonder what was behind it.
Overall, 3 stars out of 5 for me. Passable, enjoyable, but that's about it. YMMV.