Movie Review ~ Role Play

In the spring of 2022, my movie-going took a backseat to the smaller screen. I needed those few weeks to catch up on my binge-watching of countless television programs and limited series that I’d either fallen behind on or heard through word-of-mouth were can’t-miss events. Instead of 90-minute films seen in darkened theaters, I was in it for the long haul with sometimes up to eight-hour-long episodes of dramas, mysteries, documentaries, and wry comedies. I managed not to become a complete couch potato, but I was getting spud-like by the time I wrapped up the last show on my list: The Flight Attendant.

I’d heard a lot about this Kaley Cuoco-led show on HBO Max but kept pushing it down on my queue in favor of work with actors I was more familiar with. Cuoco starred on The Big Bang Theory for twelve years, a mega-popular show I never jived with. Yet, each time I would Google “Best Shows to Binge,” the Cuoco-produced The Flight Attendant sat at or near the top of the list. So, I gave it a go and found it a refreshingly charming twist on a comedic mystery, as promised. I think I even liked the second season a little more, even if it may have pushed the boundaries of its own cleverly sound concept. Though I feel the show was beginning to explore winning new territory, Cuoco put a third season on indefinite hold, and as of this writing, there are no plans to continue the series.

All this backstory is necessary because Cuoco’s new film from Amazon MGM Studios, Role Play, premiering on Prime Video, often comes across like Season 3 of The Flight Attendant, which many of us are still waiting for. While the two properties diverge in critical areas, they share more than just Cuoco as a likable lead struggling to balance a double life. Role Play’s duplicitous handlers, mother-figure issues, close family members in peril, and pressure cooker situations requiring split-second decisions with nasty consequences all tread on the eerily familiar, and often atonally formulaic, territory.

Emma Brackett (Cuoco, The Wedding Ringer) has just returned home from her latest “business trip” only to find that she has forgotten her wedding anniversary, not that her husband Dave (David Oyelowo, See How They Run) is that shocked. For a while, Dave has felt like Emma’s work has taken more time away from their family, and the mother of two seems ready to look for another job closer to home.  Dave doesn’t know that it won’t be as easy to place Emma in a position that matches her skill set (lethal assassin) or her pay grade (she’s a top-of-the-line killer), but in the meantime, both agree they need to shake (wake?) up the romance in their marriage while she sorts out her work.

Devising a plan to meet at a downtown hotel as strangers and see where the evening takes them, before Dave can arrive and start the frivolous ruse Emma is chatted up at the lobby bar by Bob (Bill Nighy, Living), an older gentleman who hasn’t found Emma by chance. He knows her true identity and that she has a price on her head from a rogue agency with ties to the government who trained her and wants to keep her under their control. When Dave gets to the bar and finds Emma tied up with Bob, he sees this as nothing more than a challenge to go home with the beautiful girl at the end of the night. But the couple is in for a bevy of trouble as secrets come out into the open and Emma’s dark past collides with her picture-perfect present.

Screenwriter Seth W. Owen has an unusual filmography that runs from the 2010 off-kilter comedy Peepers to the nervy fun (and woefully underseen) of Morgan from 2016. He’s mashed both worlds together for Role Play, and the results are mixed. Paired with French director Thomas Vincent, the screenplay can’t ever decide if it wants to be a dark romantic comedy with bursts of surprisingly tactile violence or a spy thriller that occasionally pauses for laughs. When Cuoco and a uniformly game Oyelowo hit their stride early on, the askew rom-com elements seem to be coming together nicely and only sharpen with Nighy’s arrival.

Strangely, when the film shows its ambitious plans for turning into straight action, it falls completely flat. Our leads appear clumsy and bored with the material, and new characters who are introduced with much verve don’t quite help speed things along. I love the natural power Connie Nielsen (Wonder Woman 1984) can bring to the screen, but she’s frustratingly inert in Role Play, relegated to a character that tends to repeat themselves often, which is either a fault of the screenwriting or editing. The stretch of the movie that prominently features Nielsen is so far removed from the beginning of the film that I had to remind myself I was watching the same movie that saw Cuoco making Mickey Mouse blueberry pancakes 70 minutes earlier.

Maybe I just wish Cuoco had looked at the script for Role Play and felt more inclined to return to a third season of The Flight Attendant instead. It’s not hard to squint and see hues of the layered character she built over two seasons on that show in Emma, but she’s not afforded the same lively plot twists and turns in Role Play that were present in her popular streaming show. At least the chemistry with Oyelowo (who sports a mannered American accent but is loose and lovable throughout) is strong enough to sustain a watch, just insufficient for any future replay.