The Players

The Players (Les infidèles, 2012) is a French comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Built as an anthology of short segments, it circles one theme from every angle — male infidelity in all its absurd, shameful and cringe-inducing forms.

Jean Dujardin and Gilles Lellouche don't play a single duo but a whole rotating cast of cheaters: a business trip that goes off the rails, a clinic for sex addicts, a Paris nightclub, a Las Vegas casino. Each vignette has its own director — among them Michel Hazanavicius, Éric Lartigau and Lellouche himself — so the tone swings from broad farce to something almost rueful. Alexandra Lamy, Sandrine Kiberlain and Guillaume Canet round out the players.

Dujardin shot this right after The Artist, the role that won him an Oscar, and the whiplash is real: silent-era charm traded for crude, sketch-style humor that pushes the line. The result is uneven and definitely not for everyone, but French-cinema fans and admirers of the pairing will find it worth a peek. Stream The Players (2012) online on iFILM.