Playing It Cool, 2015
Directed by Justin Reardon
Starring Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Michelle Monaghan, Topher Grace, Ioan Gruffudd, Martin Starr, Luke Wilson, Anthony Mackie and Ashley Tisdale
SYNOPSIS:
Unrequited love motivates a guy to write about his experiences.
First time director Justin Reardon clearly has a lot of friends in high places. Along with first time writers Chris Shafter and Paul Vicknair, they have managed to amass a cast that includes Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie, Spider-Man 3‘s Topher Grace, Fantastic Four‘s Ioan Gruffudd and Parks and Recreation‘s Aubrey Plaza, as well as Martin Starr, Luke Wilson and Michelle Monaghan. Now a cast list wouldn’t seem that out of the ordinary for most motion pictures, this is for Playing It Cool (formally A Many Splintered Thing), a simple rom-com that is now available on VOD. Is it a bad movie? Not particularly. But it’s surprising that every single person on that list signed on for it.
Evans plays a writer, known only as the narrator who is tasked with penning a light-hearted romantic comedy so he his agent can get him a deal writing an action movie. The problem is that “he” has never known love and therefore cannot write about it. While his group of writer friends attempt to help him, he finds himself falling for “her” played by Michelle Monaghan. But while she is in a long-term relationship with “Stuffy” (Gruffudd), Evans finds he can’t keep away from her and isn’t just happy being in the ‘friend zone’.
Playing It Cool is a movie that is all about clichés and embracing those clichés. As a writer, Evans rejects the idea of doing a rom com because they are cheesy affairs that rely heavily on those clichés in order to sell tickets. But Shafer and Vicknair’s script parodies his hatred of the genre by placing him smack in the middle of one with all of his token friends alongside him. While not exactly clever and/or original, Playing It Cool is never ashamed of what it is and its all the better for it. You have discussions over whether girls and guys can be best friends, you have the ‘sex complicates things’ talk, you have the wedding announcement, you have the one night stand that leads to an argument and you even have a race against time to tell the one you love how you truly feel. There’s even a gay best friend.
But where Playing It Cool falls slightly however is that it’s never sure of itself as to whether they are parodying genre conventions or just bowing down to them. On the surface, Playing It Cool is about satirising the standards of rom coms, but then at other times it plays it totally straight. It never quite gets the balance right. So while it may be a humorous look at a much maligned sub genre by having our lead character visualise himself in romantic movie scenarios, it could also be Justin Reardon thinking he’s clever by presenting a visual aide to his narrator’s plight. You of course can do both (Shaun of the Dead for example), but doesn’t quite hit the nail.
The cast aren’t half-arsing this either, with Evans and Monaghan giving it their all in each sequence. It was obviously a script that everyone liked as all the supporting cast pull their weight even when given nothing to work with, but the female characters in particular are woefully underwritten. Monaghan gets a hard time as a woman who wants to have her cake and eat it; happy to marry a man she doesn’t love but continues to flirt and cavort with a man who wants what’s best for her. But Aubrey Plaza’s Mallory seems the most offensive. A poorly-written ‘man-hating-feminist-writer’ who holds one-woman shows about her vagina but is secretly in love with our protagonist. It just feels a bit insulting.
With some fairly interesting visual attempts and some half-decent jokes, Playing It Cool is not a failure by any stretch of the imagination, despite its poorly conceived characters. There’s some flashes of brilliance in there, but its watered down by an uneven tone that doesn’t know which side of the sofa it wants to sit on. The cast all do well, but with a cast this strong it should be better. Harmless fun indeed, but nothing that will change your life.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published March 2, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
