Parents' Guide to

The Players

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Cheating is main theme of dumb Italian sex comedy.

Movie NR 2020 88 minutes
The Players Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • The Players Movie: Scene #1
  • The Players Movie: Scene #2

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What's the Story?

In a series of vignettes, THE PLAYERS explores the theme of middle-aged male infidelity. While at the airport en route to a vacation, a wife accuses her husband of having an affair, and he nearly convinces her that it's not true until she surreptitiously checks his phone before takeoff. In the next story, back at home after a dinner party filled with conversation about affairs and cheating, a man (Valerio Mastandrea) admits that he has been unfaithful to his wife, who retaliates with secrets of her own. Then, a married man seeks sexual satisfaction through a "gloryhole" in a sex parlor. Next, a wannabe Don Juan out of town for a work convention (Riccardo Scamarcio) gets drunk and awkwardly fails at finding a woman to have sex with, and ends up humiliating himself in the middle of the night while trying to seduce a coworker. After this, a woman thinks she sees her husband receiving oral sex while he's driving his convertible; he gaslights her into requiring psychiatric care.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

While being presented as an "Italian sex comedy," there's nothing particularly funny about this movie. For instance, the "twist ending'" to the vignette concerning a dissatisfied married man who resorts to anonymous sex through a hole in the wall of a sex parlor seems more like an X-rated resolution to one of those Mentos commercials from the '90s more than anything. In another story, a pathetic white-collar Don Juan wannabe ends up in the hotel room of a coworker at three in the morning and engages in borderline sexual assault. In the penultimate vignette, a man gaslights his wife (who rightly thinks she sees him receiving oral sex while driving in his convertible) into requiring psychiatric care. Essentially, if you remove the middle-aged European suave style (and perhaps the Viagra), it seems more like one of those randy and very dumb teen sex comedies from the '80s.

The Players isn't all bad. Most of the male characters are played by either Scamarcio or Mastandrea, and the range of character types presented over the course of the movie is impressive. In the best vignette, the slow descent between a husband and wife into a mostly theoretical discussion of infidelity into the mutual admittance of their own indiscretions and how it nearly destroys their marriage and family is masterfully paced. But even that takes the easy way out at the end. Overall, the promising premises of each story end in disappointment.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how sex is presented in The Players. Does the movie glamorize womanizing, casual sex, and cheating on one's spouse, or is the comedy rooted in showing the ridiculous lengths these sex-obsessed men will go to sleep with other women?

  • Do you think impressionable viewers (particularly teen boys) could be influenced by the questionable behavior of these men, or is their behavior so outlandish that it's impossible for anyone to view it as a way to act in society?

  • How does this compare to other sex comedies you've seen?

Movie Details

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