Jessica Chastain has, over the past decade, carved an impressive legacy spent portraying some of the most strong-willed, complex women on the silver screen. Her Golden Globe-winning performance as CIA intelligence analyst Maya in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty saw her powerfully bring to life a character whose fierce determination – at times, to a fault – drove many of the film’s most compelling moments.
The authenticity and heart that Chastain brings to these roles is what makes her one of the most fascinating actors working in Hollywood today. And she continues to do so in her starring role as the titular character in the newly-released Molly’s Game. The Aaron Sorkin-helmed film centres around the real-life story of Molly Bloom, a once-successful competitive skier who, throughout much of the 2000s, ran arguably the most exclusive, high-stakes underground poker game in the world. Her games in Los Angeles and later New York attracted a clientele of some of the wealthiest men in America – elite businessmen, Hollywood actors and sports stars – before her arrest in 2013.
In addition to his writing the screenplay, Molly’s Game is also Sorkin’s directorial debut. It follows some of his best work in the past decade spent writing captivating, fleshed-out characters based on real-life figures, such as Mark Zuckerberg in 2010’s The Social Network and the eponymous Steve Jobs in 2015.
I love playing a character where we show their flaws.
Sorkin has said Chastain was an obvious choice to play Bloom, noting that the two share a wry sense of humour and a strength that doesn’t require playing tough. And for Chastain, getting to work alongside Sorkin was largely what drew her to accepting the role in the first place. “I think he’s our industry’s greatest wordsmith”, says Chastain. “He’s a political filmmaker, he’s an idealist, he creates characters that inspire you and lift you up. For me, they inspire me to be smarter than I am, and funnier and braver than I am. So much of entertainment today is lowest common denominator, and I love something that makes you want to lean up towards something. It’s enlightening.”
As part of her preparation for the role, Chastain met Bloom face to face and was able to spend a considerable amount of time researching her. “It’s an incredible gift when you’re playing a real person to have them be open to letting you study them. I love doing research, so she was open to that. She was available to me; we spoke a lot on the phone.
“I was able to study her in person, which is a strange thing to say. You have to be vulnerable to allow a person to study you like that.” According to Chastain, the openness and generosity that her real-life counterpart showed her is largely responsible for the representation of Molly that is shown onscreen.
Chastain says part of the process was also about understanding Bloom’s actions and appearance, specifically within the context of a woman vying to be seen – and hold power – in a traditionally male-dominated environment. “I learned a lot by playing this character”, she explains.
“Before I played Molly, when I first started Googling her, I had a lot of judgment against her – and I’m so upset at myself for this – for the way she presented herself. The clothes she wore, the makeup she wore, the photos she took – I kind of dismissed her because of it.”
Chastain says that over the course of getting to know Bloom, understanding the real person behind the Vanity Fair photos and ‘Poker Princess’ headlines was vital. In a world that often refuses to grant women personhood beyond their sexuality, actively choosing to wield that sexuality can be one of the only avenues available to women to hold power.
“When I met her and begun talking to her I realised we live in a society where women are most valued for their sexual desirability. So, for women who feel invisible, there’s a way for them to feel like, ‘Okay, I’m going to finally be paid attention to, I’m going to be listened to, I’m going to become this in order to find power.’
“The fact that I had judgement against that was really confronting to me, and I wanted the film to explore that. I wanted the film to see that transformation Molly makes, and understand that it comes from the players; her boss literally saying, ‘Ugly shoes, ugly dress’, and her realising that in order to be taken seriously she needed to put forward this sensuous visual.”
Lessons Learnt
The journey that Chastain made from judging Bloom to understanding her is mirrored by her lawyer in the film, Charlie (Idris Elba), who is initially reluctant to take on Molly’s case as a result of her salacious tabloid headlines.
As Chastain points out, there are two times in the film when Molly is told by a man that she is not dressed appropriately. The first is by her boss telling her she’s not dressed sexually enough, then later by Elba’s character, telling her she’s dressed too sexually upon their first meeting.
It’s a visceral representation of the strict tightrope women are forced to walk everyday in society – simultaneously shamed for both prudish and provocative appearance. As the film progresses we see one-dimensional criticism give way to genuine empathy – the depth and conviction with which Elba plays his character and the chemistry between him and Chastain is powerfully human. In a lot of ways, Elba’s character is a vessel for the audience’s journey that occurs over the film – towards the end, despite all previous misconceptions or premature judgment, it’s near-impossible for Charlie – or the viewer – not to empathise with Bloom and her choices.
I think we live in a broken system, a broken society.
In addition to meeting her in person, Chastain’s research into the role also included being taken into the kind of underground poker rooms that Bloom ran, often filled with men who knew her through playing in her games – what Chastain refers to as being “invited into the man cave”.
“I didn’t want to just come at the film and at Molly from her telling of who she was, because who we are today is very different to who we were ten years ago,” Chastain explains. “I met with players who played in her game: they took me to a New York poker game and I observed it. I was invited into the man cave that was these poker rooms and that was very helpful. A lot of those players knew Molly, and I talked to them about their experiences of being in the rooms with her while she was running the game, and I learned a lot about her through that as well.”
‘Man cave’ is an accurate descriptor for the rooms, which appear in the film as dens of male hedonism. Some of the film’s most interesting moments come from seeing Chastain’s character navigate the bastion of masculine bravado that the poker rooms hold; in many ways, a microcosm of society’s ugliest displays of male chest-beating.
Seeing Molly hold the cards (so to speak) in this environment brings with it a certain empowerment – her choices, be they good or bad, are made autonomously. It’s a welcome relief, particularly following Chastain’s comments at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival where she served as a jury member, critiquing the passive portrayal of women in films.
Watching Chastain’s character in Molly’s Game, one can’t help but be subtly reminded of her other potent performances as confident and fierce, flawed and complicated human beings. “I love playing a character where we show their flaws,” she says.
The Freedom To Be Flawed
As Chastain notes, while the imperfections and flaws of male characters are treated as a given and their depictions onscreen often praised, women in films are rarely given that same space to be complicated. Instead, attention is predominantly focused on the on-screen romances that are assumed to be innately tied to the narrative for female protagonists.
“I find that for years we’ve had movies about men where they’re very complicated characters and we see their emotional flaws. We see that they’re loners and they’re heroic for it, and we root for them. I’ve noticed that whenever I play a character like that in Zero Dark Thirty, or Miss Sloane or Molly’s Game I get questioned about whether or not it’s a realistic portrayal of a woman because she’s not in a romantic relationship. I find that question kind of infuriating.
“As Aaron Sorkin said so beautifully at a Q and A for Molly’s Game, no one ever asked him that question about Brad Pitt in Moneyball. For me it’s very important to show female characters as complicated, flesh-and-blood human beings and not a one-dimensional stereotype.” Indeed, that there is no contrived romantic subplot driving Molly’s Game is solely to its benefit, allowing an insightful, three-dimensional look into Bloom’s character.
2018 follows a year that saw the film industry take massive strides against misogyny, sexual harassment and gender inequality. Men in positions of power within the industry were openly called out for their misconduct towards women, movements like #MeToo gained widespread media attention and there was discussion sparked about gender pay disparity within the film industry. Chastain, whose feminism is interweaved with her professional life through everything from the roles she takes to the way she actively uses her platform to challenge misogyny in press interviews, says she’s noticed a visible change.
“It’s kind of an incredible thing I’m noticing happening. I really felt it a year ago at the Women’s March in DC. The largest protest in the history of the United States is called the Women’s March and I love that. I think it’s the first time women are collectively saying this normalisation of abuse is not appropriate, and we’re not going to navigate that anymore.
“I think we’ve been taught at a young age that it’s just something you have to deal with: wage inequality, being careful of what you wear… This idea of women having to navigate an unhealthy society. I feel like it’s the first time women have said they were not going to do that anymore – they’re going to stand against it.
The largest protest in the history of the United States is called the Women’s March and I love that.
“I think we’ve seen it unfold in many ways, such as women coming forward speaking about abuses of power. I hope to see it continue – I think women are feeling very protected and stronger as a unit. This myth that women don’t get along: I think we’re tired of it being fed to us, that women don’t work well together, that women fight or are catty with each other. I’ve never experienced that in my life and I’m ready to move away from that fictionalised idea of what a woman is.”
For Chastain, understanding that intersectional struggle can only be confronted by women coming together in solidarity with one another is central to fighting against oppression and inequality. “It’s divide and conquer,” she says, referring to the lateral violence that patriarchal structures have used to keep women from collectively challenging oppression.
“Kings would do that with their commoners – the way that someone holds onto power is to create in-fighting. I think we live in a broken system, a broken society – and when one person is victimised we all are, and we have to acknowledge that. But when a group of people who have been abused and victimised combine their powers? It’s a very difficult thing to suppress.”
Molly’s Game is out in Australian cinemas now. For more film reviews, read our thoughts on Nocturama, here.
