The Creepy Player

On Thursday, March 16^th, we watched, The Player, directed by Robert Altman in 1992. The film is about a man named Griffin, a studio executive whose job is to find good screenplays and writers. At the beginning of the movie we quickly find out that Griffin is being threatening through post cards by an disgruntled writer. Griffin does some investigating and decides to confront the writer he believes is behind the scary post cards. He ends up killing the writer but makes it look like a mugging. I began feeling uncomfortable when Griffin becomes involved with the dead writer’s girlfriend. After a string of cover-ups and lucky events on Griffin’s part, he gets away with murder, even though he murdered the wrong writer.

The player was a film noir, which I have decided I appreciate but do not like. I was grew progressively uneasy and squeamish throughout the movie. I thought Griffin would be our “hero” but he was just so vulgar and BAD. After discussion, it turns out that what he was in this movie was the “anti-hero,” because he is the bad guy, however, the audience is still on his side (what a freakin’ art). June, the dead writer’s girlfriend and Griffin’s new girlfriend, also gave me a bad vibe. One, she gave way too much information to someone looking for her boyfriend on the phone. Two, she doesn’t mourn the deaths of her parents nor her boyfriend. To top her creepiness, she engages in the most grotesque sex scene I have ever seen with Griffin, even though SHE KNOWS he killed her boyfriend. Any sympathy about her oblivion to Griffin’s crime was brushed away after this scene, because he was TELLING HER at this point.

In the end of the film, the couple lives “happily ever after.” There is a scene that shows him on the phone from a convertible that is just like a scene early on in the movie where he is on the other end. At this point, it is evident that any good in him has been lost and he has totally transformed into a bad guy. We see this transformation of Griffin throughout the film though. As the story progressed he becomes more disheveled in his appearance and he becomes conniving and manipulative towards his co-workers and girlfriend. I usually enjoy endings that don’t end happily, but I don’t like this ending. It ticked me off so bad! However, it was a perfect ending for what Altman wanted to achieve with a story of evil triumphs good.