You're dropped right into this one, and it took me a while to know who was talking about who to whom, when, and why. This works OK though as it reflects these people's hectic lifestyles.
I don't find Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) very likeable. I don't really find anyone in this very likeable, but clearly that's intended, and all the main parts do unlikable well. The first fifteen minutes flew by in a bit of a blur of important talking mixed in with unimportant talking. It was difficult for me to distinguish one from the other, but as the story unfolded and plot points were pointed at I later found myself going "oh yeah, him", etc.
Mill's job is basically to look at scripts and ignore 99.999% of them. The 0.001% he takes and passes on and the movie maybe gets made and the writer gets paid. Everybody's happy, right? The movie execs get to keep having parties and being snooty to servers, and the writers get to keep going to Japanese karaoke bars. Well, no they're not. It turns out Hollywood can be a source of drama.
I know, I didn't believe it either, until Mill confronts a writer who he thinks has been sending him death threats and ends up killing him. At this point it gets easier to be drawn in to the movie, and this captivation lasts more or less right through to its close.
I think what I like most about 'The Player' is all the bullshit that everyone talks to one another. It is the same shallowness of speech that can be found in 'Office Space' and the same shallowness of thought that can be found in 'American Psycho'. You hear a floofy British guy describe a bad movie to Mill then describe it again, word for word, to Levy. Later when Levy pitches it, he uses the exact same words. Every movie proposal is "A meets B, but with ghosts", everything has heart in the right place, everything is what people can relate to, and if it has a sad ending it has to have a sex scene. I love the scene where Mill goes into the station in Pasadena and he is just in obvious contempt of everything, but the cops are smart, and he quickly looses his cool and by the end of the scene he's looking comically guilty. A lot of this movie really does feel like 'American Psycho', which came out 8 years later.
One thing that did bother me a little - and I'm not sure how to fit it in here - but why was June impressed by the pool? "Look, it's like it's steaming" she says (or something like that), but she's Icelandic, and hot eggy springs are their thing. Though it is uncertain weather she really is Icelandic. Perhaps it's an intentional move to create more doubt.
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| Cross your legs cross your legs CROSS YOUR LEGS. |
Really what stood out to me about this film is how clever it was. There was a lot of meaningful editing. At one point Mill kills a rattlesnake with an umbrella, then we cut to a close up of one of June's questionable paintings, and it's Mill with wavy, snake-like streams of colour obscuring his face. This is just an example; the film is chock full of that kind of stuff which I can't fit in here, and even if I could be bothered I probably missed a lot of it.
Another scene opens with a big dead fish in a pond, with lots of smaller fish beginning to feast on it. This, I think, is Mill: a big fish in a small pond, and one that's about to be dead (career-wise and freedom-wise). The smaller fish are all the Levy's and writers of Mill's world; ready to pick apart his carcass.
But that's not how the movie ends. Mill doesn't have to atone at all. By the end of it all there isn't even any evidence to support him caring. As he pushes past his ex, who is in tears after having been fired for standing up and saying that a movie change (from a sad to happy ending, from no stars to Bruce Willis) was a bad idea. Mill manipulated the whole situation to get at Levy, he was the one who made the changes. Mill has sold out in all aspects of his life, and now is quoting the crappy movie line to his pregnant wife and living happily ever after.
The Player: 88.7