Here’s the Deal: ‘Player’ Plays Games With Films : Whether Farce or Satire, ‘Player’ Is Cautionary Tale

While I concur with many of Peter Rainer’s comments in “Here’s the Deal: ‘The Player’ Takes Hollywood Genre One Step Beyond” (Calendar, April 19), I must take issue with his assumption that “Robert Altman had the intuitively right inspiration to fashion this modern Hollywood fable a farce.”

Webster defines farce as a comedy based on unlikely situations and exaggerated effects; a foolish or meaningless show; ridiculous sham; mockery.

Perhaps Rainer meant satire , the use of irony, sarcasm or ridicule in exposing, denouncing or deriding vice, folly, etc.; a literary composition or genre in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision or ridicule.

The latter is acceptable, if one must “label” at all.

Altman and screenwriter Michael Tolkin are offering reality, albeit heightened reality . . . unless Rainer is referring to getting writers out of the house and on the set.

Thirty years of show business prompt me to characterize this well-made, entertaining film as a cautionary tale, which reminds that important to impotent is a lot closer in Hollywood than in Webster.

Furthermore, there is nothing superficial about Greta Scacchi’s character in “The Player,” as Rainer writes. The character is well developed and fascinating to watch . . . take another look.

This picture doesn’t need a label, unless it’s “well worth seeing” . . . Mandatory viewing for all who go to the movies!