Summary

• Molly's Game is a compelling adaptation that follows Molly Bloom's transformation from Olympic skier to poker club host to FBI target, while incorporating Aaron Sorkin's trademark repartee.
• The movie takes some creative license with certain aspects of Molly Bloom's true story, but still remains faithful to many details and aspects of her life.
• The film includes some notable differences from the book, such as changes to the name of the club and the club owner, as well as the depiction of a fictional lawyer character.

Following the true story of Molly Bloom, the Molly’s Game movie made many significant changes from the book. The 2017 adaptation from Aaron Sorkin follows Bloom as she transforms from Olympic-level skier, to host of the most exclusive poker club in the world, to FBI target. While a lot of the movie takes into account the true story of Molly Bloom, it also leaves out some details, making room for the trademark repartee in Aaron Sorkin's movies and tv shows.

Molly’s Game stars Jessica Chastain in the title role as Sorkin explores Bloom's unlikely and fascinating journey. The details and aspects of Bloom's life depicted in the movie are exciting, and sometimes unbelievable, as the movie jumps from a thrilling poker movie to a courtroom drama to a story about a father and daughter. However, while Sorkin adapts a lot of the Molly's Game true story faithfully for the big screen, he also takes some creative license with certain aspects that makes for a compelling movie.

The Club In Molly's Game Is Different In Real Life

The Real Poker Games Happened In The Viper Lounge

Everything portrayed up until Molly moves to LA in Molly’s Game is extremely accurate of the true story. Her father’s overbearing insistence on excellence, her skiing career and accident, and her start as a waitress make appearances both in Bloom’s memoir and in interviews with the ex “Poker Princess”. Like in real life, barring some name changes, Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong) met Molly while she was waitressing and offered her a gig as his assistant at his nightclub. The movie changes the name of the club, though.

In Molly’s Game, it is called The Cobra Lounge, while the real-life poker games took place at The Viper Room, found on the Sunset Strip. The connection between the names is clear, although the movie’s tweak does remove some of the history from the location. The Viper Room, part-owned by Johnny Depp between 1993 and 2004, was a famous celebrity gathering point; it is where River Phoenix died from a drug overdose in 1993. Where Molly’s Game depicts The Cobra Lounge with a flashy neon sign stereotypical of West Hollywood, The Viper Club’s current exterior is far more downplayed.

Molly's Game Changes The Name Of The Club Owner

Darin Feinstein Is The Real Owner Of The Viper Room

As Aaron Sorkin's first movie as a director, he carefully chose the changes he made to the Molly's Game true story, such as how the only thing the movie changed about the club owner who first launched Molly into the world of underground poker is his name. The movie calls him Dean Keith; Bloom’s memoir calls him Reardon Green.

In real life, his name was Darin Feinstein, a co-owner of The Viper Room who brought Molly on as an executive assistant. The more insane details in the movie about Molly’s experiences working with Keith are relatively true to life. The scene in which he yells at Molly for buying “poor people bagels” is something that actually happened, according to her memoir.

Who Is Molly’s Game's Player X?

Player X Is Widely Believed To Be Tobey Maguire

In the book Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World, Bloom is careful about who she names, and who remains anonymous. Actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Macaulay Culkin became known participants in the underground poker scene after a court case turned public; the bank sued Molly for the money one of her players, Ponzi scheme runner Bradley Ruderman, had lost in the game.

In her book, Bloom only refers by name to the people who the media had already outed, protecting the identity of her players who remained anonymous. Taking that one step further, the only real name used in the movie is Molly’s own. However, Player X in Molly’s Game is quite clearly meant to represent Tobey Maguire, who Molly names in her book.

The movie even nods at this association by stating Player X had once portrayed a superhero; Maguire famously played Spiderman in the mid-2000s trilogy. According to Molly’s book, Maguire was a terrible tipper, an amazing player, and an awful loser. In the movie, Player X goes on to take control of Molly’s weekly game, whereas, in real life, it was another player. However, like in the movie, Maguire really did call Molly to gleefully inform her she had lost the game.

Molly’s Lawyer

Idris Elba's Molly's Game Character Isn't Based On A Real Person

Molly's Game's Charlie Jaffey, played by Idris Elba, is an entirely fictional person. While Molly did hire lawyers, Jaffey is an agglomeration, Sorkin’s way of integrating his point of view into the movie. In fact, Sorkin didn’t even interview Bloom’s real-life lawyer, Jim Walden, to allow himself one wholly fictional element. Interestingly, the fictional law firm Jaffey works for, Gage Whitney, has made several appearances in Sorkin’s work, including in The West Wing and Studio 60. But overall, the Molly’s Game true story remains intact, despite this fictional person being included.

Molly's Game Ending & Timeline

There Are Only A Few Chronological Differences Between The Movie And The Book

The Molly’s Game ending brings her and her father together, where he finally acts the part of supportive parent before her trial. This scene doesn’t make it into Bloom’s memoir, although that is because she wrote it before her actual sentencing. Molly’s Game takes its inspiration from both the memoir and close work between Sorkin and Bloom herself, so Bloom was there to fill in the details between 2014, when the book was published, and 2017, when the movie hit theaters.

Another minor timeline difference comes down to her book’s role in the movie, which is an additional fictional insertion from Molly's Game director Aaron Sorkin. When she meets with Jaffey, he's already read her memoir. However, because the book was published between Molly’s arrest and sentencing, it is unlikely Jaffey (or his equivalent) would have had time to do this in real life.

Overall, the changes between real life and Molly’s Game were minor. Bloom herself was the one to approach Sorkin, rather than the other way around. Molly’s Game is a testament to the benefit of close relationships between the screenwriter, source material, and subject. In an interview with Vice about the film, Bloom said:

“[Sorkin] didn’t deviate from the truth. A lot of films in this biopic category play with a lot of creative licenses, and yes, there was some of that in terms of how he dealt with certain composite characters, but the rest was all true.”

Are All Aaron Sorkin Scripts Based On True Stories?

Most Of Aaron Sorkin's Work Is Based On Real Life

Apart from the way almost all of Aaron Sorkin's movies and TV shows are either directly based on true stories or loosely adapted from the experiences of real people, Sorkin is also known for his trademark use of perfectly-written quickfire dialogue, as popularized by The West Wing's "walk-and-talk" scenes. Sorkin's style of giving characters extended monologs and extremely cutting lines has been criticized as over-the-top and unrealistic, which are sometimes fair descriptions of Sorkin's work.

However, as seen in series and movies like The Newsroom, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Steve Jobs, Moneyball, Molly's Game, and A Few Good Men — all based on real events — Sorkin's unique dialogue only serves to further enhance and deepen the way audiences appreciate and understand true stories. Though Sorkin has his fair share of unremarkable releases, like the fact-based Being the Ricardos, much of his work is celebrated exactly for the liberal use of "Sorkin-esque repartee," a style that continues to influence fully fictional and reality-based entertainment alike.