"Men, no matter what age, ilk, or net worth, idolize a professional athlete," Bloom wrote. Here’s what’s fact and what’s fiction in the poker film, according to Bloom’s memoir. When screenwriter and The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin was looking to make his film directorial debut, he couldn't have picked a better story than that of former professional skier turned poker ring organizer Molly Bloom. When he fired her from the game, she used her new contacts to start one of her own. 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 … In addition to Leonardo DiCaprio, Maguire convinced Ben Affleck to stop by for a few hands. He wasn’t the most pleasant of employers: The line in the movie when he rejects a bag of bagels he’d asked her to buy, yelling, “These are poor people bagels!” is real, according to her memoir. Although Maguire's bad behavior made him one of the most notable figures in Bloom's memoir, he wasn't the only celeb to get mentioned by name in the book, but not the film. According to the author and the subject of the film, Molly Bloom, the facts as presented on screen, as wild as they are, really did happen. Sorkin ii. With Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera. ", When she began running games in New York City, another one of J-Lo's exes, baseball player Alex Rodriguez, joined the game. In the book Molly's Game, it's never a secret that this nefarious gambler is none other than Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire. MOLLY'S GAME screenplay by Aaron Sorkin Based on the book by Molly Bloom THIRD PASS: 12/29/15 SECOND PASS: 11/23/15 FIRST PASS: 9/2/15. Sorkin EXT. In front of us is just a greyish-white flurry with nothing to orient us and * no sound except the whistle of a strong wind at a high altitude. Eventually, he betrays Bloom by moving her game to another location and encouraging her other regulars to abandon her. One major thing that he decided to leave out were the many famous faces that posted up at the table while Bloom was running the show. She had just quit a job as a waitress, and he noticed her uniform. Le Grand jeu est un film réalisé par Aaron Sorkin avec Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba. But that plot point sure makes for a great final shot. He stole her cash and jewelry and made it clear that he was sent by the men she had met at the hotel. The real story is even worse that Cera makes it look. Molly Bloom is a real person, born in 1978. Molly's Game (2017) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Good and bad books, good and bad films. But he did introduce her to the world of poker and the game at the Viper Room, a bar he co-owned. The details of Player X's petty actions are fairly accurate to Bloom's memoir, except for one detail: the film never reveals the identity of who exactly Player X is. The game becomes successful in New York, but eventually, when players start reneging on debts, Molly begins taking money from the pots - breaking the law - to be able to protect herself. In a rare villainous role, Michael Cera is chilling as a famous actor known as “Player X” (but supposedly based on Tobey Maguire), one of Molly’s earliest regulars who’s more interested in destroying the competition than winning millions for himself. However, she only names people who had already been exposed in the media before her book hit shelves, protecting other players from exposure. MOLLY'S GAME is based on the true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. It was this driver who introduced her to his mobster “friends.” Bloom did meet them in a fancy hotel lobby, and one of the men really did order an apple martini there. (In this case, Texas Hold ‘Em.) You can unsubscribe at any time. While it certainly makes for a more dramatic opening to portray her career ending in one terrifying accident, as with most athletes, it was more of a culmination of injuries and other factors that caused her to hang up her skis. But after a year, she was back on the slopes. He slammed her against the wall and stuck the gun in her mouth. The film follows Bloom, who becomes the target of an FBI investigation after the underground poker … Then It Gets Bogged Down With Cynicism, Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know now on politics, health and more, © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. She also begins using drugs to stay awake at all hours. While a lot of the movie takes into account the true story of Molly Bloom, it also leaves out some details. But, ask anyone who's read Molly Bloom's book, and they'll have a few ideas who Player X is based on in Molly's Game. Since Bloom wrote her book before she was sentenced for her role in the gambling ring, she doesn’t address whether her father really showed up in New York City to give her a pep talk about her trial, as he does in the film. Weeks later, a stranger showed up at her door with a gun. But unlike many other screenwriters, Sorkin is usually more interested in the dramatic arc of his subjects’ lives than the fussy details. But it’s not hard to imagine Sorkin adding that dramatic flourish. Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com. Aaron Sorkin doesn’t name the celebrity players who frequented Bloom’s game in the film, but Bloom does identify some of them in her book, including Ben Affleck, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio. The true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game and became an FBI target. This is a spectacular and tense opening to the film, but it embellished the real story of the end of Molly Bloom's skiing career. Her lawyer also wouldn’t have had time to formulate opinions about Bloom based on her book. This prompted her to take a percentage of the pot in order to operate as the bank, a move that caught the attention of the … Let's take a look at what Molly's Game left out in the transition from real life to blockbuster movie. Bloom met her future boss, played in the movie by Jeremy Strong, when he almost hit her with his car in Los Angeles. She ended up addicted to drugs. In the film, one regular, identified only as Player X (Michael Cera), becomes an integral part of her game. However, Maguire didn’t take the game from her like Player X does in the movie — another player did. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. But Bloom writes that the actor was the one who gleefully called her informing her that she had lost her weekly game. And yet 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). However, the unidentified power player quickly proves himself to be untrustworthy and cruel to his fellow players, often relishing more in their bitter defeats than his own wins. In a voiceover, Bloom says that she currently ranks third in her event in North America, despite the fact that at age 12 she suffered a severe back injury that almost ended her career. The men offered Bloom muscle in exchange for a cut of her earnings. Summary: Molly's Game is the true story of Molly Bloom a beautiful, young, Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. You can finally add the popular poker movie, “Molly’s Game,” to your Netflix queue. "Molly's Game" (written for the screen and directed by Aaron Sorkin and based on the auto-biographical book written by Molly Bloom) is a good example of how short is the distance between the good ones and the bad ones. "People want to sit at a table with them, be close to them," she said, "and this was a big draw to the game. In her 2014 memoir Molly's Game, Bloom delivered a scintillating story of how she went from giving up on her Olympic dreams, to being a waitress, and then to running one of the most lucrative underground gambling operations in the country. MOLLY’S GAME is based on the true story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), a former Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested by armed FBI agents.Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Player X, is almost certainly based on Tobey Maguire. SKI SLOPE - DAY But we don’t know what we’re looking at yet. Please attempt to sign up again. All Rights Reserved. Maguire plays the biggest role in Bloom’s memoir, and there appear to be elements of him in “Player X,” played by Michael Cera in the movie. The true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game and became an FBI target. Eventually, the entrepreneur made Bloom his assistant, as well. After Salomon asked Affleck a rather personal question about his ex Jennifer Lopez's backside, the table allegedly went silent before the actor responded: "'It was nice,' he said, and pushed into a huge pot. In her 2014 memoir Molly's Game, Bloom delivered a scintillating story of how she went from giving up on her Olympic dreams, to being a waitress, and … In the book, Bloom writes that Maguire once offered her $1,000 to bark like a seal and stormed off when she refused. She even had a nasty fall on an Olympic qualifying run in 1998 — but according to Tiebreaker, that fall was just one circumstance of many that led her to give up on her Olympic hopes. In researching how accurate Molly's Game is, we discovered that as the game began to get out of control, so did Molly's life. Molly's Game, based on a true story, features an unnamed Hollywood celebrity known only as Player X, played by Michael Cera. But she decided to step away from the sport after winning that bronze medal because, as she says in her book, she wanted to find a new path in life and succeed on her own terms. But he definitely pushed his children to their limits. Having people like DiCaprio and Rodriguez at her games drew players willing to make big buy ins just to sit next to their favorite celebs. On another he insisted on using his own shuffling machine, then charged the other players for it. “Nothing was ‘recreational’ in our family,” she writes. Here's who he really is. It stars Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong, Chris O'Dowd, Joe Keery, Brian D'Arcy James, and Bill Camp. Maguire liked manipulating people even tried to make Molly bark like a seal for a tip on one occasion. In the last decade, Aaron Sorkin has written one biographical drama after another: The Social Network, Moneyball, Steve Jobs. "As they recognized him, they turned into excitable little boys. (Sorkin even nods at Maguire, who played Spider-Man, with a line about the unnamed actor playing a superhero.) Even though the movie didn't stray too far from Bloom's own experiences, that doesn't mean it didn't alter or leave out a few key details. The movie tracks Bloom’s journey from her early days serving drinks at underground poker games to eventually running her own high-profile game and, after making some bad decisions, getting arrested by the FBI. Directed by Aaron Sorkin. In her book, Bloom speaks very lovingly of her father (played in the movie by Kevin Costner). Directed by Aaron Sorkin. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Deal, flop, turn, river, showdown: There are few things more tense than the final moments of a high-stakes game of poker. A litany of celebrity encounters may have provided a certain amount of entertainment to Molly's Game, but that was clearly not the focus of Sorkin's film. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and ?nally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. 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. Then, she straps on her skis, takes off down the mountain, hits a twig just big enough to dislodge one of her boots, and has an epic crash landing that ends her sports career. Molly's Game is slightly different. In the movie, Charlie reads the memoir before his first meeting with her. Bloom then ran underground poker games for celebrities, a dangerous position that inspired the recent film Molly's Game, starring Jessica Chastain. Her poker customers came to include men from the Russian mob. ", Everything Molly's Game doesn't tell you about the true story. Getting into a high-stakes game When Bloom eventually sets herself up as the organizer of underground poker games in Los Angeles, she attracts a number of high-powered Hollywood professionals. Based on the life of Molly Bloom, an Olympic level skier who used to run the most exclusive high-stakes underground poker game at one point of time, and then became an FBI target, Molly’s Game was released in 2017 and got fairly good response at the box office as well. He threatened her family if she didn’t accept their protection and then beat her up. He may have regretted it almost instantly, as Bloom reported that he was joined at the table by notorious poker player and serial celebrity dater Rick Salomon. 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. The real Bloom began getting nervous about toting around so much money between games and hired a driver for security reasons. While Bloom was indeed an Olympic-level skiier, she decided to retire from skiing not after an injury but after a personal coup. At the beginning of Molly's Game, we see Bloom getting ready to ski in the trials for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. The scariest scene in the movie comes straight from the pages of Bloom’s book. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Though Bloom did employ real lawyers, Charlie (Idris Elba) is a fictional character who appears to be basically a stand-in for Sorkin himself — someone who is skeptical of Molly at the outset but comes to see her as a heroic figure. The mobsters contacted her about setting up another meeting and she agreed. 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. Molly’s Game explores the world of underground poker, following the true story of Molly Bloom, as she transforms from Olympic-level skier to hostess of the most exclusive poker club in the world, to FBI target. 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. 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