Molly’s Game is a 2017 film based on the true story of Molly Bloom, who was eventually indicted for running illegal poker games in both Los Angeles and New York. She starts out as a mogul skier with intentions of being in the Olympics, but she is injured in 2002 and her career as a skier ends.
She then decides to move to Los Angeles, where she becomes an office manager and meets Dean, who is running an illegal poker game and teaches her the ropes. Eventually, she begins her own illegal game and attracts big-name sports figures, bankers, movie stars, and even the mafia.
After one of her players becomes an informant for the Feds, a raid is conducted and Bloom realizes the FBI is after her, so she moves to New York City. Soon, she is running another illegal poker game. Along the way, she gets addicted to drugs and reunites with her estranged father.
The movie ends when Bloom is indicted for her illegal poker games, but the judge decides to give her a fine and 200 hours of community service instead of prison time. She ends up keeping all of her hard drives and digital records on the players who participated in her games, which protected their identity.
Here is a description of the cast and characters in Molly’s Game:
Jessica Chastain (Molly Bloom)
Jessica Chastain plays Molly Bloom, whose 2002 injury in an Olympic qualifying event ended her career and made her give up her dream of law school and move to LA instead. She learns all about illegal poker games from her boss, Dean, who eventually fires her when she gets too good at what she does.
Molly manages to stay one step ahead of the law while in LA and New York, but eventually, it catches up with her. In the meantime, she begins doing drugs and tries to stay out of the Feds’ way, but it does no good. With minor help from her estranged father, she avoids prison time when she finally gets indicted.
Idris Elba (Charlie Jaffrey)
Charlie Jaffrey is Molly’s lawyer and makes regular appearances throughout the movie. He plays a big part in helping her avoid jail time in the end because he makes the judge realize that her crime is not worthy of going to prison.
He also comes up with a plan to make her plead innocent in exchange for turning over her digital files and computer hard drives, but this is something Molly rejects because she is afraid the innocent people in her game will be punished.
Kevin Costner (Larry Bloom)
Larry Bloom is a clinical psychologist and Molly’s overbearing father. When she was a young mogul skier, he pushed her into this career and wouldn’t let her stray off of her path. He was sometimes more determined than she was for Molly to make it to the Olympics.
At the end of the movie, Larry Bloom comes back into Molly’s life and apologizes to her for pushing her the way he did years earlier. He even admits to her that he treated her differently than he did her brothers simply because Molly learned about his affairs and he wanted to keep her quiet.
Michael Cera (Player X)
Player X is a composite character based on a few celebrity gamblers who attended Molly’s games, including Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tobey Maguire, among others. After Player X shows some unethical behavior that Molly dislikes, she berates him and he ends up leaving her group of players.
Nevertheless, this is an important character in the movie because it represents the performing stars who joined Molly’s game on a regular basis. It would be interesting to find out exactly which actors and performers this character represents.
Jeremy Strong (Dean Keith)
Dean Keith is a real estate developer who introduces Molly Bloom to the world of underground poker. His character is inspired by Darin Feinstein and he starts out as Molly’s employee. When Molly learns the ins and outs of illegal poker a little better, Dean ends up firing her because he essentially doesn’t like the competition.
In short, Dean is not as successful at being a real estate developer as he is at organizing illegal poker games. Molly learns a lot about these games simply by being his office manager, and she ends up making a lot of money as a result.
Chris O’Dowd (Douglas Downey)
Douglas Downey introduces Molly to the Russian mob, which wasn’t involved in her illegal gambling before this. In the end, Molly finds out that Player X is an informant for the FBI and this is what leads to the raid of her gambling facility. The Russian mob stays with Molly during her illegal poker days.
Brian d’Arcy James (Brad Marion)
Brad Marion is a hedge fund manager who is also notoriously bad at playing poker, yet he is still part of Molly’s game. Brad catches the attention of Harlan Eustice, a successful player, after he joins Molly’s game but ends up losing to Brad, even though Brad doesn’t seem to know much about successful poker playing.
Bill Camp (Harlan Eustice)
Bill Camp is a very skilled and successful poker player who joins Molly’s game. He becomes especially compulsive after losing to a terrible poker player named Brad Marion, and he ends up suffering some very heavy losses afterward.
Later on, Molly discovers that Player X, who happens to love ruining people’s lives, was funding Harlan to keep him in the game. This is despite the fact that Harlan is having worse and worse luck at playing poker with each passing month.
Graham Greene (Judge Dustin Foxman)
Judge Dustin Foxman is the judge who decides that Molly Bloom does not deserve prison time for her illegal gambling operation. Instead, he sentences her to 200 hours of community service, one year of probation, and a $200,000 fine. Molly pleads guilty as a condition of this sentence.
Originally, Molly’s lawyer tried to strike a deal with the judge that involved her releasing all of her hard drives of information to the judge, but she rejected the deal because she wanted to protect the people who were innocent in her gaming operation.
Claire Rankin (Charlene Bloom)
Charlene Bloom is Molly’s mother and Larry’s wife. It’s a very small but significant role in this film.
Jacob Blair (Jeremy Bloom)
Jeremy Bloom is one of Molly’s brothers and has a small role in the film.