Players
Four sex addicts set up a gameplan to snare unsuspecting dates in Trish Sie’s crude and mechanical romcom.
American friction: Gina Rodriguez
Mackenzie, Adam, Brannagan and Little are not real people, but notes in the margins of Writing Romcoms for Dummies. They are the sort of infuriating ciphers that, perched between the pandemic and the cost-of-living-crisis, have the free run of New York City with all the time in the world and no financial worries. They interact like cartoon characters with their own set of zany physical moves and at times it’s a shock not to see their bon mots frozen on screen in speech bubbles. Mack, Adam, Brannagan and Little are players, best friends with the hormones of teenagers who help each other land dates on an almost perpetual basis. They deal in sexual espionage, setting up advantageous accidents that can but lead to a one-night stand – because that is all they can stand. Mack (Gina Rodriguez) is the centrifugal force whose three playmates are her Chandler, Ross and Joey, with New York their playground. But, this being the 2020s, the quartet is entirely more inclusive: Mack is Latino, Adam (Damon Wayans Jr) is black, Brannagan (Augustus Prew) is gay and Little (Joel Courtney) is a dork. Think Friends meets Mission: Impossible.
Then, one day, Mack utters four little words that her player friends thought they’d never hear. Of her latest one-night stand: “I might like him.” The latter is a Pulitzer Prize finalist called Nick Russel (Tom Ellis), who is tall, dark and handsome, hugely well-travelled, built like an athlete and with an irresistible British accent. His apartment overlooks the Manhattan skyline and is packed with thick books (some of which he wrote), Syrian artefacts and matching place settings. He is not only a real adult man but New York’s most eligible bachelor. So, following Mack’s one-night stand with him, she and her friends set about building a portfolio of the man in the hopes that, well, Mack might come to mean something more to him than just a one-night stand. “I’m 33 and exhausted,” she moans, minutes before embarking on a lengthy crash course in all things Nick Russel. So we learn that he likes classical music, eats real food, jogs alongside the East River and, in the negative margin, is a poor swimmer, is easily bored and is near-sighted.
Unfortunately, we know less about Mackenzie, other than that she is a sports journalist, is manipulative to a fault and one of the most exasperating heroines of recent romcom history. Equally maddening is the direction of Trish Sie, who taps into every cliché of the genre, crowding the screen with fast zooms, slow’ mo’, jump shots, speeded-up film and frenetic tracking shots, while populating the action with pop and rock songs to ease along the comedic lulls. It is formula with a capital ‘F’ and when the tone turns in the second half it comes as no surprise to anybody but Mackenzie. If there’s anything to commend the film, it’s the surprisingly grounded performance of Damon Wayans Jr (who for much of the time behaves like a real human being), and the introduction of an activity previously unknown to this critic: the arcane sport of chess boxing. We learn something every day.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Gina Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr, Tom Ellis, Joel Courtney, Augustus Prew, Liza Koshy, Ego Nwodim, Marin Hinkle, Brock O’Hurn, Sarah Dacey Charles, Jerry Kernion, Claudia Maree Mailer.
Dir Trish Sie, Pro Ross M. Dinerstein, Marc Platt, Adam Siegel and Ryan Christians, Ex Pro Gina Rodriguez, Screenplay Whit Anderson, Ph Matthew Clark, Pro Des Dina Goldman, Ed Kathryn Himoff, Music Jeff Cardoni, Costumes Karen Malecki.
Marc Platt Productions/Campfire Studios-Netflix.
105 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 14 February 2024. Cert. 15.
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