Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Netflix has released its newest rom-com Players starring Gina Rodriguez as Mack, a woman who has spent the last decade of her life running elaborately planned “plays” with her friends to hook up with strangers. When she meets the perfect, polished guy she decides it’s time to settle down and grow up, but after elaborately baiting him and winning him over, she realizes that she’s so used to running plays that she’s not sure is she loves him or just loves the fact that she was able to land him.
PLAYERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Over the ’60s retro-futuristic opening credits, we hear the voices of Mack (Gina Rodriguez), Adam (Damon Wayans Jr.), Little (Joel Courtney) and Brannagan (Augustus Prew), running “plays” in bars, plotting out elaborately staged pickup scenarios that target their desired one night stands.
The Gist: Three of the four aforementioned friends are colleagues at a newspaper, the Brooklyn Ace. By day, they work on their separate beats (Mack is a sportswriter, Adam is a designer, Brannigan writes obituaries), while Little is unemployed. By night, they all hit the bars and take turns helping each other run plays, rotating through the four of them so they can all equally enjoy a piece of young New York’s appetite for casual sex.
Here I am, barely 100 words into this review and I’ve already written about how these four “run plays” a lot. In the early scenes of the movie, running plays is only thing these friends talk about – which play works on what type of guy or girl, whose turn it is to run a play – it’s a whole lifestyle, their entire identity. The four friends basically exist to have hot, sexy hookups with strangers, and get a thrill from their elaborate schemes, and then give a play-by-play to their friends the next day at work. It doesn’t feel remotely realistic, but we’re setting a tone here: they’re young, sexy, and impetuous, that’s cool. Everything changes when Mack sleeps with a British war journalist named Nick Russel (Tom Ellis) who’s a friend of her editor, Kirk (Marin Hinkle). Mack runs a play on him, charming his actual pants off, but when she leaves his apartment after they sleep together, she’s overcome by the fact that she actually likes this guy.
So what do players do when they set their sights on a long-term relationship? They run a reallly elaborate play. The four friends research Nick’s work, stake out his apartment to learn his schedule and interests, and hold debriefs to assess their findings. After Nick and Mack coincidentally run into one another a half dozen times, he asks her out and they start dating. But that’s not the end of the story. Mack, who is in her early 30s and wants to settle down, thought Nick would be The One, but… once a player, always a player.
Throughout their relationship, she pretends she’s into all the things he likes and never reveals her true self. When Nick brutally critiques a deeply personal feature Mack has written, it’s devastating to her, but it’s her best friend Adam who makes Mack realize that Nick doesn’t understand the first thing about who Mack really is. Adam is the one person she can be 100% herself with, but hearing him be so critical about Nick causes them to fall out. How can she win back Adam though, now that she realizes he’s been the right one for her all along? With the help of he rest of her friends, she runs a play to win him back, of course.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Players combines elements of “best friends who realize they’re perfect for one another” movies like Your Place or Mine with movies about pick-up artists like Wedding Crashers.
Our Take: Gina Rodriguez was always exceptional on Jane The Virgin because of her ability to play wacky physical comedy just as well as she played devastating tragedy. She gets to flex her comedy muscles much more here as a sex-loving, one-of-the-guys type, but dang, when she cries, we all cry, and there are a few moments where just a little bit of her vulnerability goes a long way. It helps strike a necessary balance because the first half of the film is so over saturated with conversations about sex and plays that the characters feel one-dimensional for a while, and it’s a relief to see them eventually become more fleshed out. Unfortunately none of the other characters get the same chance to be as well-rounded. Mack’s friendship with Adam is clearly drawn and Rodriguez and Wayans are great together onscreen, and while the point of the movie is that these two players get their happy ending with one another, their romance at the end feels a little forced.
While the film feels a little uneven, romantic plot-wise, and the fact that these friends initially exist only to run plays feels artificial, it still triumphs as a comedy thanks to the realistic dialogue between the friends and the consistently funny jokes throughout Whit Anderson’s script. (I mean, yes, there are quite a few poop references in the movie, but that’s what qualifies as “realistic dialogue” and “funny jokes” in my world. It’s not unlike Wayans’ beloved series, Happy Endings, which relied on strong characters and relationships to push the often ridiculous plots along.)
Where the film excels is in the comedic chemistry of the ensemble cast. The four friends at the heart of the quartet play so well off of one another, but they also get a boost any time they share scenes with Liza Koshy and Ego Nwodim (whose does a lot with her character despite limited screen time). Even though the film’s reliance on the gang’s elaborate plays felt overwhelming, the characters develop and evolve and are always consistently funny in the process.
Sex and Skin: A few hookups are depicted with Rodriguez and a couple of her one night stands getting undressed, but no graphic nudity.
Parting Shot: Mack professes her love to Adam outside Yankee Stadium, on a bench that her parents used to sit on, while the rest of their friends look on cheering for them. It sounds a little corny, but there’s a sentimental callback to the location that helps it feel more satisfying than cheesy.
Performance Worth Watching: All four of the lead performers in the film are fun to watch and have great chemistry together, but the real standout in the film is Liza Koshy, who has a supporting role as Ashley, the office secretary, and steals all of her scenes.
Memorable Dialogue: “You can’t build a relationship from a play, you know this!” Adam tells Mack when she reveals that she has feelings for her latest play target, war correspondent Nick.
Our Call: STREAM IT! Despite some its contrivances, Players won me over.
