(To be fair, as Mack says, it’s difficult to make friends as an adult.) Sie’s direction, though at times reaching for too much flair, is solid and unusually grounded for this micro-genre the Brooklyn of this film, bowling alleys and pool bars and the promenade near the bridge, maps on to the actual borough. ![]() Players is self-aware enough, too, to poke fun at its own holes, such as how Mack has no female friends, which introduces the receptionist Ashley (YouTuber Liza Koshy) and Adam’s new girlfriend Claire (SNL’s Ego Nwodim) into the crew. But who hasn’t mistook the idea of someone for love? Anderson’s script is savvy enough to render Nick as neither villain nor flawless catch – he’s an adult person, and as such more complicated than his stats. Though Mack is a caricature of a guys’ girl, the type to drink tall boy Sapporos, eat greasy Chinese takeout out of the carton and watch wrestling, who hits the bar every night looking hot and toned but never works out, Rodriguez keeps her yearning – for love, for professional success, for change and direction – at the surface. The lengths that the generally winsome crew go to lock it down, up to and including stalking and binders full of personal data, are outlandish (and occasionally humorous), but the stakes feel real. (At least it shows some sex on-screen, though it’s of the vigorous, slapstick variety.) Players is at times too sitcom-y in its abstraction – everything is a play, sex the score, nothing for keeps. They’re sports people – Mack especially is a diehard Yankees fan – for whom sex and romance is pure strategy and payoff, Xs and Os on the whiteboard. In this case, the many schemes to score a one-night stand run by Mack and her crew – her fellow journalist and enthusiastic straight-man Adam (Damon Wayans Jr), the catty, carnal Brannagan (Augustus Prew) and Brannagan’s somewhat hapless brother Little (Joel Courtney, of Netflix’s The Kissing Booth movies). She is deservedly the main attraction of Players, a new Netflix romcom released on Valentine’s Day starring Rodriguez as Mack, a Brooklyn-based sports journalist looking to up her playbook of romantic entrapment.Īs with Amazon’s concurrently released Upgraded, starring Camila Mendes, Players, directed by Trish Sie (Pitch Perfect 3) from a script by Whit Anderson, is another case of a veteran small-screen star’s magnetism outweighing a film’s more discordant or patently ridiculous elements. ![]() The erstwhile Jane the Virgin star has a natural affinity for the romantic lead: megawatt smile, puppy-dog eyes, caffeinated energy, a preternaturally sunny presence striking the highly prized sweet spot between gorgeous and relatable.
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