In his endless attempt to conquer the world through long, breathless, moralistic speechifying, Aaron Sorkin will pivot to the director’s chair for his next project, a drama called Molly’s Game starring Jessica Chastain. On Friday, per EW, the movie secured another high-powered name to help mainline Sorkin’s wordy style into the veins of moviegoers in Idris Elba.
Molly’s Game is about a world-class skier who decides to operate a major player, high-stakes poker game when she fails to qualify for the Olympics. Chastain will play the titular character, while Elba jumped on board to play her defense attorney. The movie, based on a memoir by the actual Molly (full name, Molly Bloom) that she wrote after she was nabbed by the Feds for running the exclusive game, was adapted for the screen by Sorkin, who sounds pumped to have Chastain and Elba doing his walking and talking, as per the official announcement of the casting.
“The casting of Jessica and Idris in the two lead roles is any filmmaker’s dream come true. They’re two of the greatest actors of their generation, paired for the first time, and their chemistry will be electric.”
Look, say what you will about Sorkin’s last couple of forays into TV (or on second thought, don’t say anything about The Newsroom, please), the guy is a pretty tremendous screenwriter. He won an Oscar for his smoking script for The Social Network, and don’t forget our introduction to him back in 1992 with a little movie called A Few Good Men. The guy can write. The fact that he’s directing Molly’s Game brings about a slight pang of uneasiness seeing as how he’s better when his writing is interpreted by someone other than himself (again, let’s not bring up The Newsroom, shall we?). Still, Chastain and Elba are both straight fire, which is why Molly’s Game is definitely worth anticipating.
(via EW)
