The Game: A Film About Infidelities And Secrets

Last December Netflix returned to delight us with another fun movie. Nothing to Hide , translated into Spanish as The Game , is a French comedy about infidelities and couple secrets that is worth seeing and of course analyzing from these pages. A plot that wants to go beyond appearances and the social image of romantic relationships, as well as inviting us to reflect on what they become over time and what are the elements that sustain them.

The plot of the film involves a game between four couples who meet for dinner. The game consists of depositing the mobiles of each one in the center of the table while they are having dinner. They agree to openly answer all calls, messages and emails received during dinner so that everyone can listen or read them. They were secrets. A comedy that ends up being terribly dramatic for the characters that shape it.

The argument

Several couples who have known each other from school meet regularly for dinner together. The first note that breaks the apparent balance is that one of them appears unaccompanied : a new relationship that he has not yet introduced to his friends. Before starting dinner, you can see some details that suggest that not all couples are going through their best moment. You can also appreciate an effort on the part of everyone to add harmony to the dinner.

In the middle of a conversation, one of the women poses a game, and she does it by challenging her husband. If no one has anything to hide, everyone should put their cell phones on the table while they have dinner together and every call, e-mail or message that comes in will be read open so that everyone can find out. Despite the many reluctance that others put to play the game, in the end everyone gives in to prevent others from thinking, especially their partners, that they have secrets that they cannot share.

A dangerous game

Jealousy and insecurities inherent to each one often lead to excessive control over the partner. On the other hand, trust in the partner is one of the most important pillars on which it is sustained. Although perhaps it is also the most difficult to obtain and one of the most fragile.

But what does psychology say about this? In reality, on many occasions when the need to spy on the couple appears it is because there is already a problem. Good on one side, because mistrust is unjustified, or the other, because it is justified. Whether in one or the other, as we speak of a couple, there is no longer a side and in the end we speak of a shared problem.

The movie shows us various types of relationships. We find couples who have been together for many years, with teenage children and brilliant careers. The relationship is worn out in many ways, the passion barely survives. We also find another typical element: each one has looked for a way to fill this void of passion.

Another of the couples projects an opposite image. Marriages that seem to never lose that passion for the other and that strive, above all, to demonstrate it in public, so as not to leave doubts about their wonderful relationship. Sometimes this type of couple is the one who has the most secrets to hide: one way or another ends up moving that theater to the outside in a theater also to the inside, to the other.

When the relationship is understood only in terms of romantic love

This film is a good example of a certain stigmatization associated with dating relationships that seems to be based exclusively on romantic love. Sometimes social circles are maintained that do not allow the passage to a more mature or different evolution of couple relationships. Well, to face this pressure an emotional maturity is necessary that not all couples have reached.

In addition, each couple is different, there is no doubt. Perhaps the most important reflection after watching the film is to consider whether it is better sometimes to bet on the relationship despite the secrets or if it is sometimes better to air the secrets to really appreciate the type of relationship that is maintained and if it deserves the shame to continue with her. A story that tries to go beyond whether or not there are secrets between couples and makes an attempt to show us why those secrets are generated and kept. In any case, a highly recommended film, both in its Spanish version and in the one produced by Netflix.