Role Play shows that there are no couple goals

Role Play is a 2024 Amazon original movie featuring Kaley Cuoco as Emma Brackett and David Oyelowo as David Brackett. Married couple, Emma and David agree to spice up their marriage with some role play which leads to the eventual reveal of Emma's secrets, skills and real identity.

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The Brackett family consists of Dave, Emma, Wyatt(Regan Bryan-Gudgeon), and Caroline(Lucia Aliu). Emma lives a secret double life as a valued assassin and this is revealed to David during a murder investigation. The guilt Emma lives with is evident throughout the movie. In the opening, she changes her outfit to return home after a mission. This includes her wearing her wedding ring and this moment feels heavy as she returns to her reality of lying which is shown as she gets home. She forgot their wedding anniversary and her disappointment is shared with her handler, Raj(Rudi Dharmalingam).

Dave's disappointment is suppressed and he searches for a possible solution. He is met with a different relationship issue by his colleague, Kevin(Dominic Holmes credited as Meyers). Kev's partner Trina travelled for her sister's wedding and she has not reached out to him in a while. Dave hears this and brings up the bigger issue that he's not there with her. Kev said he needed his perspective since Dave and Emma are 'couple goals.' He mistakes their marriage length for 20 years because of how great they appear but Dave states that they have been together for 7.

Dave struggles to bring up his suggestion for role play and to show the costume he bought but he succeeds. He felt something was off and wanted to gain that connection back. Despite not going with his idea, there was a compromise to roleplay as strangers with no costume but he kept it though. They got Dave's sister, Molly (Stephanie Levi-John)to take care of the kids for the night.

They meet after Emma's interaction with Bob(Bill Nighy) ends. He asks, "Have we met?" which starts their conversation then they introduce themselves as Alice Overby and Jack Dawson. The awkwardness, excitement and nervousness when stepping into roleplaying were portrayed well. She was able to get into things easily because she's been pretending for the longest time but Dave was awkward before he got better with it. 

I have written about relationships several times, most notably in my 'Valentine's day and some movies' article which preceded my 'Marriage and some movies' article and I believe Dave took his vow of marriage seriously. After he finds out, he looks for her, contacts her, flies to her, discusses with her, fights with her and succeeds with her. He felt she was either hiding something or not in love with him anymore so the reveal gave him relief to finally find out what was missing. He did admit that he liked how things were. He said he loves their family and still loves her despite not wanting to due to the betrayal but they overcame it.

Before they are caught in Berlin, Emma has a vulnerable conversation with Dave. She shares the truth with him and answers all his questions. She admits that her real name is Anna Peller which aligns with what David was told during his interrogation. She adopted the name of the deceased Emma Rayburn when they met 8 years ago.

Emma's job is dear to her as she works with Raj to execute targets while trying to lay low. She said, "Dave it's my job, okay? It's what I do. I don't know how to do anything else." He said that killing is very bad and that she could take a class to try something else but Dave is consoled by Emma's promise to leave everything. The bounty on her head by Sovereign put her and her family in danger to people like Bob. She explains that she did not leave them but worked to make arrangements for their escape (such as Canadian passports).

Emma was trained by Gwen Carver(Connie Nielsen) after the death of her father, the leader of the private security company called Sovereign. We learn that Agent Carver manipulated her when she was younger and at some point she began to allow it until she didn't and wanted something else for herself. Emma is highly skilled and known as the best at what she does but she began to desire something normal when she met Dave on a mission 8 years ago. She still craves normalcy as she tells Agent Carver that she likes New Jersey and loves her family.

Emma is often away from her family. She said Dave was her first love and Wyatt was her second. Wyatt was birthed from Dave's previous marriage and they birthed Caroline together. She admitted that she had one or two missions a year when they first got married but it increased over time. When she left to make arrangements, in an attempt to console her she told Caroline that she wouldn't notice she was gone but Caroline said she already noticed.

From what I've watched and read about living a dangerous life, it seems better to tell them maybe not explicitly but to help them defend themselves. It could have helped the children with discernment when they were around Agent Carver. A skill to help them understand their surroundings better is necessary but then again parenting and marriage are not easy. However, Wyatt asks if they truly got hit by a tree and they confess that they got into a fight with some bad people to clarify that it was not with each other. It shows that the kids sensed that something was strange indeed. The movie ends with the family escaping the house in the woods after leaving Anna's old life and the dead bodies to begin anew. 

Side-note

Couldn't she have helped Raj? Was he too far gone for some assistance? I felt she may not have known some medical information but that knowledge was shown when she shot Dave. She briefly questioned his loyalty but Raj cleared her curiosity as he said he could have sold her out a while ago if he wanted to. I wonder what happened to the investigation for Bob's death. I guess they might overlook it since he was a contract killer or Agent Carver could have said she would handle it. The gaslighting and obsession by Agent Carver is astronomical. I was as shocked as Dave that she truly shot him. The music choices were great. I loved the opener. I watched this because I was intrigued by the poster, I thought it was an interesting pairing. Overall, I liked it.

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