Play It as It Lays (film)

{{Infobox film

| name = Play It as It Lays

| image = Play It as It Lays (film).jpg

| alt =

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Frank Perry

| screenplay = {{Plainlist|

}}

| based_on = {{based on|Play It as It Lays|Joan Didion}}

| producer = {{Plainlist|

Frank Perry
Dominick Dunne

}}

| starring = {{Plainlist|

}}

| cinematography = Jordan Cronenweth

| editing = Sidney Katz

| music =

| studio = F.P. Films

| distributor = Universal Pictures

| released = {{film date|1972|10|19}}

| runtime = 99 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $1 million{{cite news|last=Gardner|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Gardner (writer)|title=Perry Making Hollywood Film – His Way|date=February 10, 1972|newspaper=The New York Times|page=59}}

| gross =

}}

Play It as It Lays is a 1972 American drama film directed by Frank Perry from a screenplay by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, based on the 1970 novel of the same name by Didion. The film stars Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins, who previously starred together in the 1968 film Pretty Poison.

Plot

Former model Maria Wyeth, who comes from a Nevada town with a population of 28, is now a successful actress. Unhappily married to, and separated from, temperamental producer Carter Lang, she is also chronically depressed and institutionalized.

Reflecting back on what brought her to the asylum, Maria recalls driving around Los Angeles in her yellow Chevrolet Corvette and spending time with her closest friend, B.Z. Mendenhall, an unhappy man who is gay. Maria has a brain-damaged daughter, Kate, who is being kept in a sanitarium at the insistence of Carter, who resents Maria’s visiting the girl so frequently. Maria's secret desire is to live somewhere with Kate and find some kind of joy in life together.

Maria has been having an affair with Les Goodwin, a screenwriter. When she tells Carter that she’s pregnant with Goodwin’s child, he demands that she get an abortion. Maria goes to Las Vegas and has a fling with a mob-connected lawyer, Larry Kulik. She later returns to L.A. and has a one-night stand with Johnny Waters, a television star who needs to watch his own show on TV in order to get in the mood for sex.

Bored and depressed, Maria steals Johnny's car and speeds off. When she is stopped by police, drugs are found in the car and she is placed under arrest. With her spirits at an all-time low, Maria returns to Las Vegas and finds that B.Z. is equally unhappy. When B.Z. swallows a handful of pills and washes them down with vodka, Maria, rather than calling for help, cradles him and watches him die.

Back at the asylum, a psychiatrist asks Maria why she keeps on playing when she knows what “nothing” (nihilism) really means. She replies, "Why not?"

Cast

{{Cast listing|

Tuesday Weld as Maria Wyeth Lang
Anthony Perkins as B.Z. Mendenhall
Tammy Grimes as Helene
Adam Roarke as Carter Lang
Ruth Ford as Carlotta
Eddie Firestone as Benny Austin
Diana Ewing as Susannah
Paul Lambert as Larry Kulik
Chuck McCann as abortionist's assistant
Severn Darden as hypnotist
Tony Young as Johnny Waters
Richard Anderson as Les Goodwin
Elizabeth Claman as The Chickie
Mitzi Hoag as Patsy
Tyne Daly as Journalist
Roger Ewing as Nelson
Richard Ryal as apartment manager
John P. Finnegan as Frank
Tracy Morgan as Jeanelle
Darlene Conley as Kate's nurse
Arthur Knight as himself
Albert Johnson as himself
Allan Warnick as TV panelist
Jennifer C. Lesko as Kate (uncredited)

}}

Reception

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars and praised the two leads' performances: "What makes the movie work so well on this difficult ground is, happily, easy to say: It has been well-written and directed, and Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins are perfectly cast as Maria and her friend B.Z. The material is so thin (and has to be) that the actors have to bring the human texture along with them. They do, and they make us care about characters who have given up caring for themselves."{{Cite web|url=http://rogerebert.com/reviews/play-it-as-it-lays-1973 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |title=Play It as It Lays |date=January 22, 1973 |website=RogerEbert.com |publisher=Chicago Sun-Times}}

Molly Haskell of The Village Voice was less enthusiastic, stating that she had "a hard time remembering [the film]."{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YFQQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CIwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6273,2935688&dq=molly-haskell&hl=en |title=Etherized on the card table |last=Haskell |first=Molly |author-link=Molly Haskell |date=November 8, 1972 |page= 74|work=The Village Voice}}

Vincent Canby of The New York Times found the screenplay and direction "banal", but effused praise for the performances of Weld and Perkins, writing, "The film is beautifully performed by Tuesday Weld as Maria and Anthony Perkins as B.Z., but the whole thing has turned soft."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/30/archives/play-it-as-it-lays-comes-to-the-screen.html |last=Canby |first=Vincent |author-link=Vincent Canby |date=October 30, 1972 |title='Play It as It Lays' Comes to the Screen |newspaper=The New York Times}} Critic John Simon described Play it as it Lays as "a very bad movie."{{cite book |title=Reverse Angle: A Decade of American Film|last1=Simon|first1=John |author-link=John Simon (critic)|publisher=Crown Publishers Inc. |year=1982 |page=92}}

Tuesday Weld was nominated for a 1972 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.{{cite web |title=Play It as It Lays |url=https://goldenglobes.com/film/play-it-as-it-lays/ |website=Golden Globes |access-date=28 April 2025}}