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The Players (Les Infidèles)

Movie · 2012 · 15 people

Every chapter of this French sex comedy from 2012 is a short film about infidelity, in place of a single plot. Les Infidèles, roughly “The Unfaithful Ones”, is its original title; in English it is The Players. Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche share the lead roles and each also writes and directs a segment. It reached French cinemas in February 2012, just after Dujardin won the Best Actor Oscar. It runs about 109 minutes.

At the centre of the stories are men, married or attached, who have no wish to settle on one woman. The chapters unfold in hotel lobbies, nightclubs, a sex-addiction clinic and the casinos of Las Vegas, and all ask the same thing: does marriage really demand fidelity, and why would a man who cannot live monogamously marry at all? Besides Dujardin and Lellouche, the ensemble includes Alexandra Lamy, Guillaume Canet, Sandrine Kiberlain, Mathilda May, Géraldine Nakache, Anne Suarez, Anthony Sonigo, Bastien Bouillon and Charles Gérard.

Other segments were directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé, Alexandre Courtès, Éric Lartigau and Jan Kounen, along with Michel Hazanavicius, the director of The Artist. In Turkey it opened in September 2012 and drew a lukewarm “passable” verdict from a local critic, who compared its boundary-free jokes to the Farrelly brothers of Dumb and Dumber.

DirectorEmmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé

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Cast

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Sandrine Kiberlain Sandrine Kiberlain Film actor · 58 years old Lionel Abelanski Lionel Abelanski Actor · 62 years old Jean Dujardin Gilles Lellouche Guillaume Canet Mathilda May Alexandra Lamy Anne Suarez Anthony Sonigo Bastien Bouillon Charles Gérard Clara Ponsot Dolly Golden Éric de Montalier Éric Massot

Titles sharing this cast

Through different eyes

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

This is not a family film, and it is best to say so up front. The subject is infidelity, the humour is aimed at adults, and one chapter takes place in a sex-addiction clinic. A Turkish critic also noted that the jokes know no limits. It is not something to watch in the same room as children or older relatives. With your partner or friends, knowing what you are in for, it is a different matter.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Sketch films share a fate: even when the segments share a theme, tone and rhythm shift from director to director. A line-up running from Michel Hazanavicius to Jan Kounen and from Éric Lartigau to Emmanuelle Bercot makes The Players feel less like an auteur film than a compilation album. The variety brings some liveliness, but over roughly 109 minutes it prevents any cumulative story from forming; each chapter asks the same question again without deepening the answer. Having Dujardin and Lellouche both in front of and behind the camera gives the project a signature, yet in my view the real gap is the lack of an idea that develops from one sketch to the next. The 'passable' verdict seems fair for that reason.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The question the film asks is a serious one: can a marriage survive without fidelity, and why would someone who cannot be monogamous marry at all? But it is asked from the point of view of the womanising men at the centre of the stories, and the women's share in the debate seems to stay in the background. That choice reflects an ambivalent comic stance that mocks this kind of masculinity while partly indulging it. Hotel lobbies, nightclubs and Las Vegas casinos also chart a male world that lives outside the home. Does the film criticise that world or laugh along with it? In my view the answer changes from chapter to chapter.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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