Here’s another pleasant surprise from RTP, the national TV station of Portugal. 4Play was indicated to me by a friend in the classes that I’m currently attending, and let me tell you, it is quite well done! I don’t know if there are subtitles for any other language, and I’d only recommend you watching it if I knew that the subtitles were faithful to the language spoken in the show.
Synopsis
4Play tells us a story of a group of friends who live at Oporto. They play a game that mainly involves scoring with the practice of sex, though they follow a lot of rules in said game, which focus on adding points according to how the sex was done and forcing the group to help each other for the whole process before one could score a girl.
The group is composed of three guys and a girl in their mid-twenties who come up with schemes and scenes to convince other girls since the female player does not play much, to hang out with the guys and eventually have sex with them. Depending on the variety of how the sex is done or achieved, the guys will score more or fewer points. This game came up so that the guys had stories for a book that the girl in the group was about to write.
After a tribulated night, however, one of them scored a girl who was a cousin of a friend of the female of the group, thus initiating a chain reaction in between the group of friends and the cousins who are soon introduced in the storyline. This triggers a whole lot of events that would soon change their lives, as they became aware of what’s around them while they 4Play the game.
Analysis
4Play is the second Portuguese show that surprised me this year. Perhaps because our shows don’t tend to be original in my eyes or they’re in different genres from the ones that I appreciate.
The mood of the show begins as playful and sinful as it could possibly be in the lives of these guys, but soon we learn that there’s a story behind each one of them. Soon after, the developments of the plot become even more important than the game itself, even though we continue to learn new rules from the first to the last episode.
Each episode has its own touch. There’s one that is all about flashbacks, as the characters try to figure out what had happened on the night before. In all episodes though, there are some scenes which are simply epic as the camera goes around the scene showing what each character is up to.
If you happen to live or have visited Oporto in Portugal, you’ll probably recognize a lot of the locations where a lot of scenes were shot. I guess it is kinda cool to know and watch these places with your own eyes, but also through a screen.
4Play had a decent and believable plot with a lot of spicy scenes, humor but also drama and social problems currently found within our society. It was definitely entertaining to watch, as the quality of both the writing and the execution were top notch! If you speak Portuguese, this is definitely a must watch! Sadly, as I mentioned above, I don’t know if there are any subtitles for any languages and I doubt someone bothered to make them, so if you don’t understand the language, that’s definitely going to be a barrier.
What began as a game focused on revelry and sex, actually ended up in having a serious message for the viewers about several topics such as finding love, drugs, attempting to reattach with an ex, you name it. I wasn’t expecting this level of depth, although it isn’t much, in a show where the premise is a sex game/competition between four friends.
TL;DR
4Play goes beyond what it seems to offer besides a simple, hot comedy. It expands itself with diverse characters, several notable locations of Oporto and some situations which are probably known to all viewers. The show is highly entertaining and provides some unique shots that are rare in the industry of the current days. This goes with a recommendation to watch the show if you understand Portuguese, but sadly I don’t think there any foreign subtitles that stay true to the characters’ lines, thus invalidating most people of watching it.
Through Fantasy and Reality 