It's a biopic. Based on Jasmine Bloom's own memoir published in 2014, it tells the story of a woman Jasmine Bloom's successes and ups and downs in her life journey. 13-year-old skiing spine deformed. After disregarding the doctor's advice, he participated in the Olympic trials a few years later and was seriously injured. In desperation, I found an office job. The owner of this office is also the organizer of an underground celebrity card game. Jasmine met many famous people in it, and was criticized by the boss, who fired her. This is Jasmine's third failure. So she used her existing network resources in Los Angeles to organize her own poker game. Just when the business was booming, he was disturbed by "Player X" among the guests. Jasmine suffered yet another failure. She moved her position and went to New York to open a poker game. With her ingenuity, her business became bigger and bigger, and she became a "poker princess" in the circle. However, the good times did not last long. The Russian criminal group involved in the poker game committed a crime and involved Jasmine. The FBI arrested her and confiscated all her property. She suffered yet another failure.
Unlike the biopics we have seen in the past, such as "Young Marx", "General Patton", "Steve Jobs", etc., there is no brilliant performance and no great success. This film is about the failure after failure that Jasmine has encountered.
While watching this movie, I noticed two technical issues. One is that poker is an ordinary industry in the United States, and as long as the organizer does not charge commissions, it is not illegal; the other is that what we are enjoying now is only this movie, which is the narrative of the movie, the portrayal of the characters in the movie, and the attention paid to it. It's the idea that the movie is trying to express. Maybe the woman Jasmine is very different in real life or what she describes in her own biography, but I have neither the time nor the desire to know the real her, so I should treat it as a fictional character.
It's easy to see success in people's lives. If you succeed, fame and fortune will follow, you can be proud of yourself, and you can show off everywhere. The problem is that not everyone can experience success in the usual sense. If you encounter a failure, you can count on a comeback. If you encounter another failure, you can say "the big deal and start all over again". But what if your life is always accompanied by failures again and again? Here, the most common way is to jump off the building in despair. But Jasmine's attitude was completely different. First, her understanding of success is not fame and fortune. She doesn't care about the fame of the "poker princess" or the savings on the account. When she can't afford a hamburger and has to eat pancakes instead, she still rents skates with Chanel gloves as collateral to go skating. She sees it clearly: "This game has given me identity, respect, and a status recognized by people in a social circle that I've never been able to achieve." What she longed for was "to exert power over those who have power". "I learned that there are no rules. Their power is not exercised because of right or wrong, but because of their ego and vanity," she said. The freedom to exercise power was what Jasmine wanted. Let's not judge her desire for right or wrong by our values, at least it is much deeper than the desire to open the sack and count the money. It is this desire that gives her motivation and pursuit. Push her to rise from failure again and again. She said: "You know how I can feel good when I lose? Go and win it back." Because of this belief, we can expect that the 35-year-old will definitely regroup and start all over again in the future. The last line of the film is: "Churchill defined success as: not losing enthusiasm even after failure after failure. So I think I'll persevere".
There are a lot of poker shots in the film, and one scene caught my attention. It's about Harlan, a casino veteran. He played carefully without revealing flaws, and yet such a master fell on Brad, one of the worst poker players. After placing the bet, Harlan looked at Brad, the rotten hand. Harlan was experienced and knew how someone who bluffed would behave. His blood vessels were swollen and his fingers were stiff. And those performances Brad didn't have at all because he sucked. Harlan felt guilty and let Brad slaughter it hard. So Harlan broke down and lost control, losing more and more bets, and losing $1.2 million overnight. When I saw this earlier today, I thought to myself, "Don't play when you're old." I think if he answered, he would have said, "Did you persuade your father the same way?" Or to quote Mr. Lu Xun: "Yes, I was 45 years old last year". Comedy? Tragedy? What this paragraph reminds me of is that a person will have different emotional expressions in different environments, and you cannot assume that his performance in this specific environment represents his complete thoughts, feelings and characters. At the same time, the emotions he expressed at that time were seen by different people and would have different interpretations. If you see your own interpretation as the only correct one, there are only two words that can describe your opinion: paranoia and ignorance.
After Jasmine suffered this Waterloo, the FBI tried to persuade Jasmine to reveal the client's real name and contact information. And the cost of refusing to cooperate is jail time. Molly's lawyer Charlie also persuaded Molly to accept it. Charlie said, "You gotta understand, I can't put you in jail. You're going to get all your money back, and you're going to be the first defendant out of court. If you've kept them a secret, where are they?" At this moment, Jasmine refused without hesitation: "It's not their name that I protect, it's my name, I care! Because this is the only thing I have left. Because this is my reputation." When persuading her, Charlie didn't even dare look directly into Jasmine's eyes. Because he also knew it was unethical to do so. In the eyes of many Westerners, honor is the most important, and whistle-blowing is the most despicable. This concept has not yet formed among the general public in our country. Not to mention that the son who has repeatedly praised his father and his wife denounced her husband, but now, in the whispers between neighbors, the privacy of others is still a topic of relish. This is not because of the difference in the concept of honor and shame between the East and the West, but because we simply do not realize that this practice is a sign of low morality. In this regard, I also hope that those who want to encourage others to inform others don't talk about national security and people's interests. If you really want to encounter such a thing that endangers national security, you can use all investigative methods to investigate it, instead of asking a citizen to cover up their clumsiness at the cost of their precious honor.
The film can be called a high-intensity bombardment of lines, but it does not feel long and boring. If you taste it carefully, it is a very interesting post-dinner discussion. Molly is played by Jessica Chastain. Her excellent performance in "Ms. Sloan" was introduced earlier. The same strong women still shine in this film.
My rating: 8.0.
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