History Film / MollysGame

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Molly doesn't have to go to jail, and gets back most of her money that was seized by the government. On the other hand, she's a convicted felon, it will be hard for her to get a good job, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and she can't go to Canada]]]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Player X is written as a {{composite|character}} of infamous poker players in Hollywood, specifically Creator/BenAffleck, Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio, Creator/TobeyMaguire, and others. Ironically he's played by the very famous celebrity Creator/MichaelCera, who the audience is initially led to believe was playing ''himself''.

** This may be a {{Subversion}} however, as allegedly and according to certain sources, most of the really bad things that Player X does really were by one specific well-known celebrity, namely [[https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/12/27/16805574/mollys-game-real-celebrity-stories Tobey Maguire]].

* GoodLawyersGoodClients: Despite being in hot water with the FBI, Molly is ultimately a decent person, and this compels Charlie to represent her in the case. She came to him in the first place because she wanted a lawyer who wasn't even a ''little bit'' shady.

* BasedOnATrueStory: Adapted from Molly Bloom's memoir of the same name. The book itself actually appears in the movie and is the inciting incident for the [=FBI=] arresting Molly, as she mentions members of TheMafiya as participants in her games, so the film is something of a sequel to the first edition of the story.

* BasedOnATrueStory: Adapted from Molly Bloom's memoir of the same name.

* PsychoPsychologist: {{Downplayed}}, but Larry is exceptionally hard and borderline abusive with his daughter in pushing her to succeed, teaching her that "tired" is a synonym for "weak" and having her back skiing competitively within a year of her badly injuring her back and being told she should never ski again. So the fact that we learn twenty minutes in that he is a therapist and a Professor of Psychology pretty much makes him this as he should ''definitely'' know better than to raise his child in such a manner.

** This may be a {{Subversion}} however, as allegedly and according to certain sources, most of the really bad things that Player X does really were by one specific well-known celebrity, specifically [[https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/12/27/16805574/mollys-game-real-celebrity-stories Tobey Maguire]].

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Player X is written as a {{composite|character}} of infamous poker players in Hollywood, specifically Creator/BenAffleck, Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio, Creator/TobeyMaguire, and others.

* AchievementsInIgnorance: "Bad" Brad accidentally bluffs his way into winning a huge hand (his first ever win at the table) because he was too bad at poker to realize that he should have folded. His reckless betting spooks Harlan into thinking he has much stronger hand and he folds.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: While Molly was quite accomplished at a young age herself, both of her brothers eventually eclipsed her in their father's eyes -- as least, she seems to think so.
* AntagonisticOffspring: Molly and her father have an antagonist relationship, shown in both current-day scenes as well as flashbacks to her youth.

* BeingGoodSucks: [[spoiler: Molly would have walked if she'd just turn over some scandalous gossip to spice up the trial, but she won't betray her clients' confidences, costing her her fortune and a felony conviction.]]

* CareerEndingInjury: Done twice over. As a teenager Molly was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and her spine had to be restructured mechanically, under normal circumstances she should have moved on but continued pushing herself as an Olympic-level skier. She was on the edge of qualifying for a medal when a freak accident on the mount makes her crash hard, reminding us that her spine was "rebuilt using parts from an erector set." In this case, even that turned out to be not so bad, but [[DentedIron the culmination of all her injuries]] ensured she wouldn't compete at that level again.
* DeadpanSnarker: Molly, Charlie and Larry amongst others. It is a film written by Aaron Sorkin, after all.

* {{Fanservice}}: Most of Molly's attire is quite revealing, a required part of the world she was involved in and discussed as part of the story (her first poker night she wore a modest $85 department store dress). This continued even after she stopped handling poker nights, at her arraignment Charlie even asks if she is trying to promote a "Creator/{{Cinemax}} version" of herself.
* FinancialAbuse: Molly's father didn't support her move from Colorado to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, so she had to sustain herself during and after the move.

* FreudWasRight: Discussed, along with a subversion of AllPsychologyIsFreudian and FreudianExcuse. Larry is a college psychologist and Molly starts a meaningless argument over Freud's worth as a psychologist. It quickly turns toward personal attacks about the difference between not liking men or not liking dicks. Near the end of the story Larry accuses her of having a stigma against being dominated by men, which he argues against, but he later confesses it was just to rile her up so that he could make his real point.
* FunctionalAddict: Molly starts abusing drugs and alcohol to cope with the stress and pressure of running her games. She holds it on a leash so that she is never visibly out of control to her clients or employees, but during the trial she admits that her judgement was seriously compromised and that's why she made the blunders that brought everything down.

* HollywoodHealing: Averted. [[spoiler: Molly is attacked by a mob enforcer and beaten up pretty badly. Going to the ER would attract police attention, and after cleaning up she says she waited several weeks in her apartment before her injuries and bruises faded enough that she could cover it up with makeup and go outside again.]]
* IHaveYourWife: Not literally, but [[spoiler: when Molly gets robbed and roughed up by a mob enforcer, one of the things he tells her is that they know where her mother lives]].

* KarmaHoudini: Most of the men who played in Molly's poker games were involved in much worse things than she ever did, and yet many of them get away relatively scot free. Of particular note is Player X, who ruins people's lives for fun, was engaged in a scheme that could have put Molly in legal jeopardy without her knowledge, successfully screws her over and steals her LA poker game, and never gets punished for any of it. In fact, because Molly only used the real names of people who were exposed in the Bad Brad indictment, it appears Player X managed to not even get touched by that.
* TheLongList: A legally mandated list of 87 steps were required to be asked by the judge [[spoiler: when Molly is set on pleading guilty]], among them including any recent drug use.
* TheMafia: A group of gangsters try to muscle in on her games after she becomes established in New York. A pair of them approach her in a bar after Molly's own security man asks her for a favor in meeting some business friends of his. [[spoiler:When Molly turns them down, they send a thug to beat her up and rob her in her own apartment. Afterwards, however, there is no follow-up harassment and she learns that -- purely coincidentally -- a massive police sting hit them a few days later and they had much bigger things to deal with than her]].

* MeanBoss: Molly's initial boss (who gets her into the gambling scene) is a ''major'' asshole to her.

** Also, apparently one of the reasons why the government assumed Molly was more involved in TheMafiya was [[spoiler: references in their text messages saying "get molly" or "we need molly", referring to the drug ecstasy, not Molly Bloom]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: It's unclear if Bad Brad was aware of how terrible he is at poker, but either way he was more than happy to lose huge amounts of money at the table because he was making millions off the Ponzi scheme he was recruiting Molly's players into.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The judge is presented as one by Charlie. [[spoiler:He's right - the judge realizes that the "crimes" Molly has committed are quite minor and gives her a very minimal sentence.]] Averted by the FBI and the government in general, who are effectively bullying Molly into giving away her clients' confidential information.

** Molly acknowledges that she shares a name with a character from ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}''

* SlobsVersusSnobs: When two members of TheMafia try to muscle in on Molly's operation, she notes that they are clearly street-thugs who are completely ill-suited to the martini bar where they are meeting. They're trying too hard to compensate and show that they ''aren't'' unused to these surroundings, and one of them even orders an appletini.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: It's brought up that Molly was arrested by two dozen FBI agents armed with semi-automatic rifles for a comparatively benign crime. It was actually a negotiating tactic, make her terrified of the severity of the accusation and fold easier.

* UngratefulBastard: Bad Brad, in order to make himself look better when he's arrested for running a Ponzi scheme, claims to the government that Molly essentially forced him into gambling addiction, when instead she actively tried to discourage him from playing given how bad he is. This results in Molly being named in the indictment and brings her to the attention of the FBI when it's pursuing TheMafiya

* PistolWhipping: TheMafiya thug who assaults Molly in her apartment slams the side of her head with his pistol.

-->'''Molly:''' (''as Stella's leaving)...There's no law that says you can't just hit him in the head.

* PrecisionFStrike: At the beginning, while we see the skiing tournament where Molly would receive her CareerEndingInjury, she tells us the story of a survey where people were asked what they thought was the worst thing something could happen to them while playing competitive sports, and one person answered finishing fourth at the Olympics. At the end of her story, Molly comes back to this answer, and adds, "To the person who answered 'finishing fourth at the Olympics'? Seriously? Fuck you."

* PrecisionFStrike: At the beginning, while we see the skiing tournament where Molly would receive her CareerEndingInjury, she tells us the story of a survey where people were asked what they thought was the worst thing something could happen to them while playing competitive sports, and one person answered finishing fourth at the Olympics. At the end of her story, Molly comes back to this answer, and adds, "To the person who answered 'finishing fourth at the Olympics'? Fuck you."

Starting out modestly enough, the endeavor quickly grows in notoriety within the gambling community, ultimately leaving the game --and Molly herself-- at risk. When she's arrested by the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanLawEnforcement FBI]] for possible collusion with [[TheMafiya the Russian mob]], Molly seeks the legal counsel of Charlie Jaffey (Creator/IdrisElba) to get her out of trouble -- before it's too late.

* AdaptationalDyeJob: The real Molly Bloom has dark brown hair, while Jessica Chastain's portrayal of her has reddish-brown locks.

* CareerEndingInjury: Done twice over. As a teenager Molly was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and her spine had to be restructured mechanically, under normal circumstances she should have moved on but continued pushing herself as an Olympic-level skier. She was on the edge of qualifying for a medal when a freak accident on the mount makes her crashed hard, reminding us that her spine was "rebuilt using parts from an erector set." In this case, even that turned out to be not so bad, but [[DentedIron the culmination of all her injuries]] ensured she wouldn't compete at that level again.

* ForWantOfANail: Had the pinestick that resulted in Mollly's freak accident been in any other position or any other angle, chances are the accident, and Molly being involved in organizing poker games would've never happened.

* CareerEndingInjury: Molly's promising career as an Olympic-level skier is cut short when a freak accident on the mount renders her unable to ever compete again.