Metacritic reviews

The subtly profound ways in which this movie distorts the recent past makes it one of the most radically entertaining things its iconoclastic scribe has ever written.

Molly’s Game delivers one of the screen’s great female parts — a dense, dynamic, compulsively entertaining affair, whose central role makes stunning use of Chastain’s stratospheric talent.

Molly’s Game is a successful crime drama, but it’s also a film that acknowledges the presence of both good and bad luck in the pursuit of excellence. Most importantly, it allows failure to exist as a living and breathing entity, rather than a tragic ending or a fate simply suffered by the morally impure. And that is what you might call exceptional.

Molly’s Game isn’t the deepest movie you’ll see, but it’s both finely tuned and big-hearted. It’s a rouser.

With Sorkin's signature whip-crack dialogue driving an astonishingly assured directorial debut, Molly's Game is an exhilarating, superbly crafted crime drama.

Sorkin both entertains and makes you lean in to absorb every detail of this wild tale, which boasts a stellar cast to help tell it.

When Molly’s Game is good, it’s very, very good. There are dazzling moments throughout, and it’s clear that Sorkin is having a blast. Much of the film is downright intoxicating, just like the world Molly Bloom found herself in.

Sorkin’s swordsman-like pen continually keeps the picture engaging; his knack for one-liners and absurd dialogue detail remains finely attuned.

Sorkin is spellbound by his subject, fascinated by the many details of her admittedly impressive life, but the magic he clearly feels fails to translate on screen.

There's a blank space at the core of Molly's Game that the protagonist cannot fill, unable as she is to represent anything beyond her esoteric narrative of unorthodox self-actualization.