Molly's Game

We had a lazy morning, though we both did some work. 

We had lunch and then picked up Arlene and Joan to go to the movies at Sumter Landing.  Thinking there would be a long line, we picked them up at 3:30 for a 5 p.m. movie.  We sat in the lobby until the line formed.

The movie, Molly's Game, was excellent and was based on a true story.

Sorkin’s latest film and directorial debut Molly’s Game is relatively faithful to the life of its subject, Molly Bloom (played by Jessica Chastain). The so-called “Poker Princess” ran two underground games that attracted high-rolling Hollywood stars, athletes and mobsters in the mid-2000s. It’s not surprising that the movie hews close to reality: Sorkin consulted Bloom throughout his writing process, and the screenplay borrows heavily from her memoir of the same name.

Here’s what’s fact and what’s fiction in the poker film, according to Bloom’s memoir.

She didn’t actually have a dramatic skiing fall.

In the opening scene of Molly’s Game, a young Molly skis over a twig during an Olympic qualifying run and tumbles down the mountain, sustaining a serious back injury that ends her skiing career. In a voiceover, Molly blames this twig for changing her life path from athlete to “poker princess.” But in real life, that fall never happened.

While Bloom was indeed an Olympic-level skiier, she decided to retire from skiing not after an injury but after a personal coup. Bloom did have some physical roadblocks when she was younger, with an emergency back surgery at 12 after which she was told she could no longer ski competitively. But after a year, she was back on the slopes. And in college, she made the U.S. ski team and finished third overall in the country.

We came home and had our leftovers from last night's dinner - yum!