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After its splashy debut at Sundance in January led to a pricey acquisition by Netflix, Chloe Domont ’s high finance romantic thriller “Fair Play” finally made its international debut at TIFF. The (mostly) two-hander, about the implosion of a secret relationship between two hedge fund analysts, has lost none of its urgency in the interim, largely because of a barn burner of a performance from Phoebe Dynevor and writer/director Domont’s impregnable vision.

We first meet Dynevor’s Emily, an analyst at a cutthroat New York financial firm, with her back turned to the jubilant attendees of a party. She’s out on a cold ledge alone, smoking a cigarette. Quickly, she’s joined by Luke (the always alluring Alden Ehrenreich ), her co-worker and covert live-in lover. He whisks her into the party—his brother’s wedding—where his uncle calls her the “prettiest girl in the room,” then dashes off before Luke can say she’s much more than that. Emily is clearly not comfortable in this world, but her chemistry with Luke is off the charts. Before long, they’re in the bathroom having sex, her menstrual blood staining their wedding clothes. A ring tumbles out of his pocket, a hasty engagement is made, and their passion ignites.

The next day, the two awaken on their apartment floor, where they landed after more lovemaking. It’s 4:30 a.m., and the two are in lockstep as they prepare for the day, making coffee, getting dressed in their perfectly fitting power suits (and Em’s six-inch heels), only parting ways as they head to the train, a tactic to hide their relationship—which is against company policy—from the rest of the office. They’re equals at the firm, ambitious analysts, hungry for a promotion. When one of the portfolio managers quits in a theatrical and physical rage that results in a call to security, they’re both eager to take his place. Em hears a rumor it will be Luke, but when the opposite comes true, their carefully calculated careers—and romance—slowly go off the rails. 

With subtle changes in dialogue and striking visual cues, Domont’s tightly structured script and deft direction show this relationship’s eventual total destruction. When Em is first called up at 2 a.m. to learn the news of her promotion, Luke stays up until she returns, worried she may have been assaulted. Later, he turns this on its head, accusing her of sleeping to the top. That first morning, the lovers were entwined as they slept together; in the next, they sleep rigidly in their beds, then Em alone on the couch, until one morning, Luke is nowhere to be found. Their rift becomes a literal chasm. 

Scattered throughout "Fair Play" are breadcrumbs about Em and Luke's economically divergent backgrounds. They’re both Ivy Leaguers, but she’s from Long Island and got there through a scholarship. Once she entered the job market, she had to field sexism in ways Luke would never understand. Until he starts to weaponize this very sexism to undermine her. When Luke takes a course by a motivational speaker who barely hides his misogynistic techniques, he uses his newfound tools to take her down a peg. At one point, Luke says she dresses “like a cupcake,” a neg that needles her to start second-guessing not only her wardrobe but her business instincts as well.

Although they can both technically do this job and are equally committed to doing the work, it’s clear early on that her instincts, coupled with her work ethic, make her a better employee. And yet Luke clings to a sense of entitlement as if he’s owed this job and this life because he’s wanted it so badly for so long. This kind of entitlement is a luxury for Em, who has worked her ass off for as long as she can remember.

Along with her insightful examination of office politics and sexism, Domont also explores the dynamics at play in their relationship sexually. At first, their passion and carnal lust are equal; they’re partners in each other’s pleasure, with Luke going down on Em. But as her star rises at work, his resentment manifests in impotence, later in the power of withholding sex, and finally in force. Though the metaphor is occasionally heavy-handed, it's effectively employed to show how male violence is weakness, not strength.

Ehrenreich tackles Luke’s arc from supportive partner to maniacal foe with aplomb, but this is Dynevor’s film from start to finish. Her strength comes mostly from her reserve in public, only letting Luke see the looser her. But as the stress at work and home mounts, she must find ways to charm all the men in her life—without ever letting them know it. 

Throughout most of the film, Dynevor holds her body rigid, towering in her sleek yet uncomfortable heels, only allowing her emotions to show in brief flashes of anger, joy, or stress across her face. This control over her expressions becomes harder as Luke’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Yet, even as she projects one version of herself, Dynevor's breakout performance shows the strain that this double identity takes on her through just a deep breath here, a hidden look of sorrow there, or a slight tremble in her response to a co-worker. 

Em eventually lets loose in a fiery speech and scene that borrows heavily from the George Cukor classic “Gaslight,” starring  Ingrid Bergman . Fans of that film that has launched a million misinterpretations will enjoy Domont’s steady grasp on how the phrase is not just rooted in a generic manipulation of someone’s reality but also the power dynamics of a couple and their private and public perceptions. Domont’s homage, in dialogue and blocking, is far more earned than most modern evocations of the term (which is, interestingly, never uttered in "Fair Play"). 

Domont’s perfectly calibrated script occasionally veers into the overly theatrical, its grand monologues and rigid back-and-forth dialogue not helped by the film’s limited and repetitive settings. However, her thrilling mastery of slow-burn tension, insightful examination of power dynamics in business and personal relationships, and creation of exceptional performances prove Domont to be a director with a singular voice.

This review was filed from the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. "Fair Play" will be in theaters on September 29th and available on Netflix on October 6th. 

Marya E. Gates

Marya E. Gates is a freelance film and culture writer based in Los Angeles and Chicago. She studied Comparative Literature at U.C. Berkeley, and also has an overpriced and underused MFA in Film Production. Other bylines include Moviefone, The Playlist, Crooked Marquee, Nerdist, and Vulture. 

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Film credits.

Fair Play (2023)

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content, some nudity, and sexual violence.

113 minutes

Phoebe Dynevor as Emily

Alden Ehrenreich as Luke

Sebastian de Souza as Rory

Eddie Marsan as Campbell

Rich Sommer as Paul

Geraldine Somerville as Emily's Mother

Sia Alipour as Arjun

Jim Sturgeon as Uncle J

Jamie Wilkes as Quinn

• Chloe Domont

Cinematographer

• Franklin Peterson
• Brian McOmber

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What happens when your secret fiancee becomes your boss? Find out in 'Fair Play'

Aisha Harris

A cutthroat power couple Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) end up in a power struggle in Fair Play. Sergej Radovic/Netflix hide caption

A cutthroat power couple Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) end up in a power struggle in Fair Play.

Are straight cis men OK?

This is a question that's haunted generation after generation, in one way or another. It usually arises in the wake of major wars or progressive political and cultural movements. And it always finds its way into art, as creatives probe the dark recesses of rattled, insecure men who feel as though their dominance is threatened by the gains of others.

As evidenced by so many events and trend pieces of the last few years, we are presently in such a moment. Fair Play , the moody, unflinching feature debut of writer-director Chloe Domont, meets us here in titillating fashion: It's about Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), a conventionally attractive and career-minded heterosexual pair who embodies a surface-level version of the "power couple." They're young, horny for each other, and poised to make a ton of money working in finance. As the movie begins, they steal away from a wedding reception to have sex in a harshly lit bathroom, resulting in a laughable mishap and an impromptu marriage proposal in front of a toilet, after the engagement ring accidentally tumbles out of Luke's pocket.

So this is love.

But then one of them gets a promotion over the other at their cutthroat hedge fund – go ahead and guess which one ... why yes, you're absolutely correct, it's Emily – and things get awkward.

Luke and Emily (Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor) have a hard time withstanding a dynamic shift in power at work in Fair Play . Sergej Radovic/Netflix hide caption

Luke and Emily (Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor) have a hard time withstanding a dynamic shift in power at work in Fair Play .

Compounding this already-tenuous dynamic is the very nature of their romantic relationship. Emily and Luke's romance is a secret, and now he's both her secret lover and her direct report. (Outside of work, it's unclear if they have any semblance of a social life; as everything from Boiler Room to Industry has suggested, when not doing copious amounts of coke and hitting up strip clubs with colleagues, people in finance barely exist outside of shorting stocks and wooing big-time investors at all hours of the day.)

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Luke, whether he's willing to admit it or not, begins a descent into crisis mode.

Fair Play is visually moody and stylish, with most scenes taking place indoors and in dark spaces with warm, golden-toned lighting (upscale bars, restaurants) or, in contrast, the depressing dull-gray of their austere office. To its benefit, the movie isn't as high-concept as some of its cinematic contemporaries in exploring the dangers of the wounded male ego; it's not rendered metaphorically through Gothic body horror , idyllic mid-century Americana , or an iconic children's toy . Instead, Domont crafts it as a blunt, withering workplace/domestic melodrama hybrid, an all-too-real depiction of the curdling of a relationship contaminated by intense ambition and jealousy.

On paper and in practice, Emily is a top-tier broker, an overachieving Harvard grad whose keen instincts about the market impress her gruff boss, Campbell, played gamely by Eddie Marsan. Luke, on the other hand, is merely coasting by. Nevertheless, Emily believes in Luke and is convinced she can help secure him the next promotion that arises; in her mind, they're in this together. That's not quite true.

The situation here is deliberately gendered, but Fair Play still manages subtle characterizations. Luke isn't a cartoonish misogynist. Ehrenreich convincingly depicts him as someone caught grappling with the experience of having two distinct and wholly relatable reactions at the same time: happiness for someone else and disappointment for one's self. In this case, that tension manifests in escalating digs and jabs. He begins to retreat from Emily outside of the office and becomes obsessed with the hacky self-help musings of a motivational speaker. (His confidence is zapped, but he maintains a stranglehold on his sense of entitlement – the gall.) He's snippier; the sex dries up.

Fair Play is a blunt, withering workplace/domestic melodrama hybrid, an all-too-real depiction of the curdling of a relationship contaminated by intense ambition and jealousy. Above, Alden Ehrenreich as Luke. Courtesy of Netflix hide caption

Fair Play is a blunt, withering workplace/domestic melodrama hybrid, an all-too-real depiction of the curdling of a relationship contaminated by intense ambition and jealousy. Above, Alden Ehrenreich as Luke.

Emily isn't simply a victim of patriarchy, though; Dynevor plays her as steely and strategic in that ruthless male-dominated work environment, willing to let sexism and verbal harassment from her colleagues wash over her as she plots to ascend the ranks. At home, it's another story, where she confronts Luke's insecurities head-on, pushing back against his increasingly bitter demeanor. In a way, their story reverberates like a corporate world A Star Is Born , except the rising female powerhouse refuses to let her spiraling partner bring her down, even as she fights desperately to try and save their relationship.

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Luke's resentment builds believably to a nightmarish crescendo that has striking consequences for their relationship and their positions at the firm – it's both a completely familiar and utterly astonishing outcome to behold, one that's played out in relationships in some form of the extreme since, well, forever. Of course, it feels especially acute now. The draw of Fair Play lies in the alignment of that inevitability with Domont's dynamic storytelling vision. It more than meets this umpteenth era of male "crisis."

• alden ehrenreich
• phoebe dynevor
• chloe domont

‘Fair Play’ Review: A Riveting Financial Drama Dunked in Up-to-the-Minute Sexual Politics

Chloe Domont's first feature, about two romantically entangled office workers at a ruthless hedge fund, has much to say about the post-#MeToo world and has a lot of fun saying it.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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It’s written and directed by Chloe Domont, a director of series television (“Billions,” “Ballers,” “Clarice”) whose first feature this is, and Domont has fashioned one of the rare films set in the financial demimonde that nails everything about it — the numbers jargon, the risk/reward systems, the bro camaraderie and treachery — in a way that’s authentic enough to let us believe we’re seeing this world as it truly is, and not some oversimplified Hollywood version of it. “Wall Street,” in the ’80s, was a finance drama that knew how to talk the talk. More recently, those films have included “Boiler Room” (2000) and “Margin Call” (2011).

“Fair Play” joins their accomplished company, and part of what’s entertaining about it is that the characters, analyzing which assets to invest in or drop, speak in a way that’s so fast and dense with inside information that the film isn’t asking us to keep up with every word. It’s asking us to take in the underlying logic of the transactions: how each decision to buy or sell is based on knowledge about the companies that the analysts have plugged into with an eerily awesome facility. It’s as if they’re placing bets not on horses but on skittery 3D holograms whose profiles keep changing.

Both work there as analysts, but they’ve kept their romantic liaison a secret. As we learn, it’s not because they’re so private; it’s because the relationship violates company policy. The film uses this post-#MeToo, all-too-real-world situation to produce scenes that tap into a new flavor of office drama, as the two have to act studiously nonchalant with each other. But after the hedge fund’s “PM” (portfolio manager) gets fired and smashes up his office with a golf club, his position is suddenly open, and Emily, leaning over Luke’s multi-colored computer screen, can’t resist telling him about the rumor she’s heard: that the position is going to go to him. Instead, Emily gets a call during the wee hours, summoning her downtown to have a drink with Campbell (Eddie Marsan), the boss and owner of the company. He lets Emily know that it’s her, in fact, who’s going to be the new PM.

As soon as she breaks the news to Luke, he reacts in a manner that’s textbook perfect in its warmly congratulatory and supportive way. When he says, “I’m so fucking proud of you,” it’s with a crinkled grin of sincerity. But it’s a sign of what a subtle movie “Fair Play” is that we don’t need to see Luke’s underlying disappointment; we can read it in Alden Ehrenreich’s vibe. He’s an actor I confess I’ve been down on ever since “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” because I thought he was so dismally inadequate as the young Han Solo. But now I see why. There’s something officious about Alden Ehrenreich. He’s not a bruiser; he’s a cerebral mover and shaker. And that makes him perfect to play a would-be finance hotshot who has learned to keep his thoughts under wraps, and now has to do it even in his love relationship.

Luke is assigned to be Emily’s analyst, which means he works directly under her; he makes recommendations about which liquid assets to trade, and she decides. We can tell how this is going to go as soon as he delays answering one of her email requests (he only waits about 30 seconds, but the dragginess speaks volumes). And when he makes an urgent plea for a buy, and it turns out that his information was wrong and the trade tanks, the situation blows up. The boss’s reaction, hearing that the fund has lost millions, is not pretty. In fact, it’s shocking. He calls Emily a “dumb fucking bitch” to her face. But we’re meant to understand that the abusive language, even in this era, is there to signify the cult of hedge-fund ruthlessness — a cult that Emily, like everyone there, wants to be part of, so she shuts up about it. And when she makes a trade, based on her own hunch, that turns into a bonanza, all is forgiven. The next morning, she strolls in, triumphant, and Campbell slips her a commission: a check for $575,000.  

He’s a loser at the company simply because he’s not one of the (few) winners, and the worm of doubt that begins to eat away at him rears its head when he asks Emily, with seeming innocence, whether their boss, during that late-night drink, tried to put the moves on her. In a lesser movie (e.g., if “Fair Play” had been made by the Adrian Lyne of the ’90s), Luke’s paranoia about infidelity would have expanded in him and taken over. But here the point is much slyer. He’s not really concerned about infidelity. He’s using the prospect to undercut Emily’s competence — to say, in essence, “The boss may have designs on you. Which is the real reason you got this.”

Emily, in Luke’s eyes, can’t win. She goes out with the top-level managers for drinks, even tagging along with them to a lap-dance club, where she plays along with their frat-house skeeviness, because she knows that’s what she has to do; she’s got to be in the boys’ club to be a winner. But when Luke calls her out for it, tweaking her with the grim condemnation, “You don’t look like one of the boys,” it’s a great line that crystalizes male #MeToo paranoia. He’s saying, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” The dialogue between these two slowly escalates into a blizzard of power gamesmanship. It’s like the great restaurant argument early on in “Triangle of Sadness” that I so wish Ruben Östland could have sustained.

A hedge-fund office is a unique place, light years away from most of us, but Chloe Domont uses the office here to channel something about the spirit of our time. There’s plenty of obscene jousting, and the finance patter makes the characters sound like computers on Adderall, yet there’s no real bonhomie, no joy outside the momentary ping of the next deal. Eddie Marsan’s luscious performance as Campbell incarnates the new era. He’s pitiless and all-knowing, with a stare that could slice through a glacier. The men in the office — and yes, it’s just about all men — recognize that they’ve created a culture of sociopaths, and they’re cool with that. To pretend otherwise is not to win. Your only god is the market.

Is Luke jealous of Emily? Most definitely. But “Fair Play” is a good movie because his jealousy expresses something larger — the way that the future-is-female energy of her promotion skewers his place in the universe. And once he reveals his true colors, so, to our shock, does Emily. She lets out what she was holding in, and Phoebe Dynevor’s performance, which has been at once ardent and contained, erupts in a way we weren’t expecting. Emily has earned her place among the gladiators, which Luke has said he supported. But the real question she’s asking is: How do you like me now?

Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 21, 2023. Running time: 113 MIN.

• Production: An MRC Film, Star Thrower Entertainment, T-Street production. Producers: Leopold Hughes, Ben Leclair, Tim White, Trevor White, Allan Mandelbaum. Executive producers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Chloe Domont. Camera: Menno Mans. Editors: Franklinm Peterson. Music: Brian Mcomber.
• With: Phoebe Dynover, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan.

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Fair Play review – knockout thriller pits a couple against each other

Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich give top-tier performances in a juicy crowd-pleaser about a couple competing at the same workplace

I n the first scene of the punchy thriller Fair Play, a New York couple, Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (the Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor), are covered in blood. They’re at his brother’s wedding and are so desperately in heat for one another that they soon find themselves in the bathroom, him performing oral sex before group photos are taken. But Emily is on her period and between cleaning themselves off and laughing at the unfortunate timing, a ring falls out of Luke’s pocket and suddenly they’re engaged. A marriage forged in blood.

It’s no real spoiler to say that it’s a nasty omen of what’s to come, writer-director Chloe Domont’s ruthless, and ruthlessly entertaining, feature debut taking a happy young couple and throwing them into chaos. There’s something darkly gratifying about that formula, one we haven’t seen as much of recently but that dominated the 80s and 90s. While there’s a definite throwback vibe to Fair Play, Domont isn’t interested in merely repeating what’s come before.

Luke and Emily don’t just live together – they also work together as analysts in the high-stakes and high-pressure world of finance, forced to abide by company policy and keep their relationship secret. When a job opens up above them, Emily is thrilled to hear whispers that it might be going to Luke. But when it ultimately ends up hers, the couple is forced into a difficult situation. With the tables turned, Luke finds it harder to support her success and the pair start to unravel.

With a delicacy that more genre films aiming to tackle weightier topics could afford to emulate, Domont cooly constructs a contemporary story about how a gendered disparity in finance and power can wreck a seemingly successful relationship. Emily’s new position is a threat to Luke, to his self-worth and to his masculinity, and it tears at them both, following them back from the office to the bedroom. Back in 1994, the corporate thriller Disclosure posited that the only thing scarier than a woman scorned was a woman scorned who was also your boss, painting a laughably dated portrait of the evils of having women climb the corporate ladder. Fair Play, while recalling many a Michael Douglas thriller from Fatal Attraction to A Perfect Murder, is a smart rebuke to such misogyny. The biggest threat here ends up being a man’s ego.

But Domont also avoids blunting or over-stacking her story, allowing both characters to make wrong moves along the way, with some of Emily’s decisions far from unimpeachable. Bristling tension arises from the small stuff that starts to become unavoidably big, rather than an over-reliance on farfetched plot developments, a sleekly modulated balance of domestic and corporate thrills that mostly feel believably grounded. It’s a film of many, many high-volume arguments but Dynevor and Ehrenreich remarkably avoid even the slightest sign of histrionic excess, expertly carrying over their sexual chemistry to the couple’s more horrible moments – a pair you buy in moments of love as much as you do in moments of hate. Both performances are exceptionally effective, with Ehrenreich returning from his post-Solo slump to remind us why he was seen as the Next Best Thing way back when and Dynevor, a relative newcomer to film, at least, possessing the kind of confident command that should elevate her to the A-list in no time.

Workplace narratives adjacent to this have been relegated to television (there are obvious comparisons to the work-life tension in the equally horny and treacherous world of Industry) but it’s refreshing to see a story such as this self-contained within two hours. There are the odd bits of dead weight (Luke’s obsession with a self-help business guru proving a little clunky) and there’s likely to be some impassioned discussion over one particularly troubling scene in the last act, but Domont ends with a fantastic drop-the-mic moment that had the audience here at Sundance enthusiastically applauding.

Sundance is a competitive market festival and with the film still seeking a buyer, one can expect a fierce bidding war. This one is a winner.

Fair Play screened at the Sundance film festival; it is released on 29 September in cinemas and on 13 October on Netflix.

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Review: Bedroom and boardroom intrigue abounds in Netflix’s wickedly entertaining ‘Fair Play’

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Chloe Domont’s “Fair Play,” a smart, crackling thriller about sex, money, gender and power in the modern age, begins with a wickedly funny omen. Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), hot and horny and deliriously happy, have slipped away from a wedding reception (not theirs) for a bathroom quickie — an ill-timed tryst in every sense, leaving Emily’s dress and Luke’s lips stained with menstrual blood. They gasp in shock but laugh it off; they’re too drunk, on booze and each other, to worry about what everyone will think. And then Emily spies the ring that’s slipped out of Luke’s pocket, spurring him to drop clumsily to one knee, red of lip but gallant of spirit, and offer up a sweet if singularly indecent proposal.

By next sunrise, the newly engaged lovers have sobered up, and the question of what everyone will think reasserts itself. A clever sequence chronicles their morning ritual at their Chinatown apartment, as they scrub away any hint of romantic afterglow, don trim, dark suits and head off on their own separate ways — and arrive, almost simultaneously, in the same elevator of the same Lower Manhattan glass-and-steel fortress. Emily and Luke are both junior analysts at a hedge fund, One Crest Capital, and their relationship is a violation of corporate policy. So far they’ve managed to keep it off the books, hoping that someday soon they’ll be successful enough to go public without fear of repercussions.

But what if one of them succeeds and the other doesn’t? Specifically, what if Luke, though rumored to be in line for a promotion, turns out to be just another Wall Street mediocrity, soon to be kicked to the curb if he doesn’t quit in frustration or jump out a window first?

And what if Emily, who’s been quietly knocking ’em dead for months, is summoned to have a drink in the middle of the night with the big boss, Campbell (Eddie Marsan, icily mesmerizing), and told that she’s the company’s newest portfolio manager? In some ways, we already know the answer as soon as Emily anxiously returns home to deliver the good news. Luke’s first reaction is to wonder if Campbell made a pass at her, an expression of concern that is also, of course, the ultimate insult. And as the truth sinks in, not even his stiffly congratulatory smile (“I’m so f— proud of you,” he says, a little too forcefully) can conceal the shock and resentment in his eyes.

Things clearly aren’t going to end well. But if “Fair Play” spends the better part of two hours tracing this newly lopsided romance to its logical, unhappy conclusion, the blow-by-blow machinations are still a chilly wonder to behold. What gives the movie its driving tension isn’t just the glaring imbalance between Emily and Luke as employees, but a deeper incompatibility between the personal and professional imperatives they’ve chosen. Modern romance insists on projecting at least the illusion of equality, but the cutthroat capitalist world in which Emily thrives (and where Luke struggles to maintain a foothold) has no real use for appearances. You‘ve either got it or you don’t.

The tension builds slowly but deliciously, as the leads lock us into an ostensible battle of the sexes that neither character can win. Ehrenreich, whose dark-princeling good looks can curdle at will, makes Luke a fascinating swirl of ego, entitlement and fragility. He fumes in silence at his desk, listening as his co-workers speculate about who Emily must have screwed or screwed over to get ahead. (Does he want to defend her honor or join the pile-on?) Compounding his humiliation, he now reports to Emily, answering her questions, taking her orders and offering buy-or-sell recommendations that she has the power to accept or reject.

Domont, making a sharply assured feature debut, knows her way around these gleaming corridors of power. (Her TV credits include episodes of “Suits,” “Ballers” and “Billions.” ) What she’s mounted here is less a throwback than an up-to-the-minute rejoinder to corporate thrillers like “Wall Street” and “Disclosure,” among other touchstones of the ’80s and ’90s Michael Douglassance. A lot may have changed since then (the technology, for starters), and also since the rapacious ’60s sexism of “Mad Men,” an allusion prompted by Rich Sommer’s sly performance as Campbell’s silky No. 2.

But “Fair Play” knows that less has changed than we‘d like to tell ourselves, and not even the ostensible reforms of #MeToo can chase away the inherent misogyny of the elite corporate class. On the contrary, the genuine progress that Emily’s elevation represents can all too easily be weaponized against her, dismissed as a sop to political correctness over merit. And if Domont has a sharp ear for the breathlessly impenetrable jargon of high finance, she’s also keenly attuned to the piggish wisecracks that pass for small talk. For Emily, a bad day means Campbell calling her a “dumb f— bitch” to her face; a good night means proving she can roll with the boys and celebrate a six-digit commission at the local strip club.

Shooting through glass partitions and around multi-screen computer terminals, Domont extracts drama and meaning not just from her characters’ desperate glances and conspiratorial whispers, but also from the very layout of the office itself, where the hierarchies are etched into the floor plan and the ugly fluorescent lighting exposes every lie and magnifies every tension. She and her cinematographer, Menno Mans, draw a stark visual contrast with Emily and Luke’s dimly lit, sparsely furnished apartment, where their once-loving dynamic struggles to reassert itself. The movie keeps following them back and forth, between boardroom and bedroom, turning these public and private worlds into complementary, near-contiguous war zones.

“Fair Play” doesn’t entirely avoid a trap common to its subgenre, namely that what happens at the office is inevitably more scintillating — and persuasive — than damn near everything else. At home, Luke spirals, sputters and loses himself in self-help banalities, while Emily tries in vain to re-energize their sex life, a subplot that puts maybe too fine a point on her fiancé’s professional impotence. Some late family drama creeps in from the sidelines, but it feels like an unnecessary distraction, an attempt to add yet more stories to an already precarious house of cards. It all falls apart spectacularly, of course, with two tough, punitive scenes of violence — one utterly horrifying, the other undeniably satisfying. Rarely has “cutting your losses” taken on such cathartic new meaning.

'Fair Play'

Rating: R, for pervasive language, sexual content, some nudity and sexual violence Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes Playing: Starts Sept. 29 at Landmark Pasadena Playhouse; Landmark Theatres Sunset, West Hollywood; the Landmark Westwood; starts streaming Oct. 6 on Netflix

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‘fair play’ review: phoebe dynevor and alden ehrenreich mix the personal and professional in an assured erotic thriller.

Writer-director Chloe Domont’s debut feature set in the cutthroat world of a New York investment firm sold to Netflix at Sundance for a staggering $20 million.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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Positioned among those hungry financial analysts, far enough apart to avoid suspicion, are aspiring power couple Emily ( Phoebe Dynevor ) and Luke ( Alden Ehrenreich ), who have been keeping their steamy relationship a secret because dating internally is against company policy. But outside the office, they can’t keep their hands off each other.

We know that because while the strains of Donna Summer’s songs-to-fuck-by classic, “Love to Love You Baby,” are still echoing over the opening scene, Emily and Luke are hooking up in the bathroom at his brother’s wedding. In a touch redolent of vintage Neil LaBute, the sudden onset of Emily’s period makes a mess of their formalwear, but that doesn’t faze Luke. He calmly picks up the sticky engagement ring from the spillage on the floor and proposes.

The intrigue around who will get the angry golfer’s spot heats up when Emily overhears a colleague sharing a rumor that Luke is in line for project manager. They begin celebrating immediately, with more sex, of course, and Emily says it’s time for them to fess up at the office, now that they’re engaged. But Luke insists on holding off until she also gets a promotion, and they can “tell everyone else to go fuck themselves.”

But things don’t go as planned. Emily gets a late-night call from smarmy colleague Rory (Sebastian de Souza), requiring her presence at a swanky downtown cocktail bar. Only Rory has already left when she gets there, leaving Crest CEO Campbell (Eddie Marsan), a chilly boss cut from Logan Roy cloth, alone at the bar.

Subverting expectations for a movie of this type, Campbell doesn’t hit on her but instead says she’s hiding her light under a bushel. He expresses admiration for her flight from working-class Long Island (“Not an easy hole to crawl out of”), and her quick ascent through prominent finance institutions before landing at Crest two years ago.

When Emily gets home, she has to inform Luke that he’s not getting the PM job because she is, making him the analyst who reports to her. Luke makes unconvincing noises about being happy for her, but any semblance of the relationship being more important to him than his career seems a thin veneer.

Thus begins the inexorable process of Luke’s emasculation, with every sign of Emily’s success representing another blow to his virility, to which he gradually starts responding by cutting her down any way he can.

Shot by Dutch cinematographer Menno Mans predominantly in moody night scenes or in the leeched-out lighting of the office, with stealthy, slow-moving camerawork intently scrutinizing the characters, the movie makes it clear as distance creeps into the relationship that at some point the union will shatter. And given the psychological thriller tradition on which Domont is riffing, it’s likely to involve a little violence.

All the finance-world talk of buying and selling, preemptively spotting weaknesses in the market to be exploited for major yield, is uninvolving plot wallpaper. It’s only interesting to the extent that it’s reflected in Emily and Luke’s relationship. While she’s out schmoozing with the Crest executives, he’s at home stewing, schooling himself in confidence-building skills hawked by a business guru that Emily dismisses as a waste of time.

Emily’s efforts to help Luke at work backfire, and when she reluctantly bets big on a tip from him that doesn’t pay off, losing the company a hefty sum, a vague hint of sabotage hangs in the air. Or incompetence, which might be worse. Ignoring Luke’s advice and following her own instincts in a Hail Mary move to save face, Emily shows savvy way beyond his skill level.

Ehrenreich makes Luke appear more haggard and haunted with every fresh achievement that earns Emily acknowledgment and every sign that an upward trajectory is blocked for him. Bridgerton star Dynevor’s Emily, meanwhile, is torn between fueling her own career path and being sensitive to Luke’s bruised ego, trying to maintain a balance at home. But he becomes the embodiment of male fragility exposed by female power, and we know when he cracks it’s not going to be pretty.

The savagery of Luke’s humiliation at work is quite startling, as is his vicious act to remove Emily’s power in the most contemptible way possible. That all this is happening as Emily’s pushy mother (Geraldine Somerville) barrels ahead with an engagement party against her daughter’s wishes makes the crumbling of their relationship all the more brutal. The final developments honor the lurid psycho-thriller tradition, though arguably could have gone a step or two further. Even with a little bloodshed, the conclusion feels a touch restrained.

But the writer-director’s control is undeniable, making sharp use of a score by Brian McOmber to modulate the tone, with its juddering strings and needling synths at times like a ticking clock.

Dynevor and Ehrenreich have strong chemistry and generate plenty of sparks, both erotic and antagonistic, though I did wish Domont had allowed them a few more unhinged moments. Considering how it starts, the movie’s later developments seem to cry out for a more generous serving of nasty excess. There’s also not much to distinguish the supporting characters aside from Marsan’s ice-cold Campbell, who disseminates fear with just a dead-eyed stare, and erstwhile Mad Men favorite Rich Sommer as his obsequious right-hand man.

Quibbles aside, it’s good to see a genre movie tackling gender conflict in rigorously nondidactic ways, making this an auspicious debut for Domont.

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Fair Play review: Romance gets real in an electrifying thriller

The Sundance breakout — already picked up by Netflix — makes screen sex feel sexy (and dangerous) again.

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

The death of the romantic comedy has been widely eulogized for at least a decade now, though fewer people seem to mourn for its twisted sister, the erotic thriller. Wherefore the bunny boilers and basic instincts of yore?

Adrian Lyne , once a master of the form ( Fatal Attraction , Indecent Proposal , Unfaithful ) attempted a return last year at 81 with the humid Ben Affleck–Ana de Armas noir Deep Water , but mostly ending up making us feel weird about snails ; Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling doubled down on fever-dream style, and then forgot to bother with a cohesive storyline.

What the genre needed, maybe, was fresh blood. And it's there — literally, all over Alden Ehrenreich 's face — in the opening scene of Fair Play , the nervy and often gratifyingly bonkers feature debut from 35-year-old director Chloe Domont ( Ballers ) that just sold to Netflix for a reported $20 million at the Sundance Film Festival this week.

Ehrenreich is Luke, a boyishly handsome Yale grad who's crazy about Emily (erstwhile Bridgerton star Phoebe Dynevor ) — so crazy he doesn't care at all about cream-colored silk and menstrual cycles, as we learn in the first five minutes. And with that bravura moment, Fair Play marks the spot: These pretty people will get raw. Not that anyone at their day jobs even knows Luke and Emily are a couple; they're both junior analysts at the same cutthroat New York hedge fund, so in the bullpen they pretend to be casual strangers.

As soon as one of them gets promoted to a manager's desk, they've agreed, they'll come out and announce their engagement. But when Emily — less privileged but more naturally gifted — unexpectedly gets there first, hairline fissures in their home life begin to crack and spread. Can this relationship survive a power shift that neither of them saw coming? Or maybe the better question is, should it?

Domont, who also penned the lean, crackling script, keeps the tension at a steady hum that becomes a buzzsaw. The last 20 minutes are harrowing, so freighted with increasingly unhinged possibilities that the movie threatens to run off the rails entirely several times. But both leads hang on, throwing themselves headlong into the tar pits of contemporary workplace politics and gender roles without being drawn into clumsy, one-dimensional ideas of victimhood or villainy.

There's some Gen-Z Wall Street , and a heavy whiff of HBO's Euphoria -for-finance-bros series Industry , in Fair Play 's setting and tone. (Veteran British character actor Eddie Marsan is excellent as a ruthless master-of-the-universe type whose emotional reads on people like Luke and Emily come to him as easily — and disposably — as a spreadsheet). A few outrageous turns strain credulity in the final act, but the film (a Netflix release date has yet to be announced) still feels like something of a small miracle in 2023: a sexy, intelligent thriller for an adult audience. Grade: B+

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An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement. An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement. An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement.

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• Trivia The rights to this film were sold to Netflix for $20 million.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fair Play’ on Netflix, a Scorching Erotic Thriller Marking Phoebe Dynevor’s Emergence

Where to stream:.

• Fair Play (2023)
• Phoebe Dynevor

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Sex and money and power – all the stuff of Fair Play (now streaming on Netflix), a scintillating erotic thriller set in the world of high-pressure hedge funds. It’s the feature-length directorial debut from Chloe Domont, who graduates from TV like Suits , Ballers and Billions to this steamy, high-wire drama starring Alden Ehrenreich ( Solo: A Star Wars Story ) and Phoebe Dynevor ( Bridgerton ) as Wall Street traders or analysts (or whatever) who share a bed and share office space, but when there’s only one open slot for a promotion… uh oh. Just HOW uh oh does it get? Pretty damn uh oh, as it turns out.

FAIR PLAY : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Forgive me for being vague, but it needs to be said that Fair Play starts with menstrual blood and ends with regular blood-type blood. It’s emblematic of the white-hot, high-pressure love story of Emily (Dynevor) and Luke (Ehernreich, who’s now played a Luke and a Han), who can’t keep their hands off each other. And it’s not just lust – in the opening sequence, Luke proposes and she accepts, because they’re very much in love love love. But it needs to stay a secret – they work together, and fraternizing with other employees is against company policy. They leave for work and take different routes and show up at the office and pretend to be merely cordial. If that seems a bit regressive, well, it seems less so as the context is more fully established and this plot unravels. And boy, does it unravel.

See, Luke and Emily work for a finance company. A hedge fund, I think – for us plebes, it all sounds like jibberjabber from Uranus. At least on a base level, it’s one of those cutthroat competitive offices where you buy buy buy and sell sell sell and when project managers inevitably get axed, the wolves go for each other’s throats to see who can become the next sub-alpha to the big, rich boss. One guy gets the ax and as he screams obscenities and smashes up his office with a golf club, the lower-rung employees (analysts? Traders? Does any of this mean anything in a non-psychotic work environment?) shrug and turn up the volume on the sexual harassment video they’re being forced to watch. It’s the kind of job that makes scraping sewers look like a sweetheart gig.

Anyway. That office is open and Emily overhears chatter that Luke is gonna be the guy to fill it. Hooray? But then she gets a phone call that wakes her up and she’s summoned to a bar at 2am and the big, rich boss (Eddie Marsan) is sitting there. The promotion is hers. Hooray? But Emily’s the rare female in his office, so it’s a grotesque boys’ club, and rumors fly that she slept her way to the position, and on top of that, she feels pressure to be one of those boys, those gross, gross boys. Things are OK at home with Luke, though. For now. Sort of. Until he starts to wonder if she did do those unsavory things to get the gig. Nevermind that she’s really good at her job, and is willing to use her newfound power to help him get the next promotion. 

Either way, cracks in their relationship start to show. He resists her sexual advances. They work on a deal that costs the company millions and the big, rich boss calls her a “dumb f—ing bitch”; they work on a subsequent deal that earns the company many more millions than it lost, and the big, rich boss hands her a big, fat commission. Meanwhile, her pushy-pushy mother takes it upon herself to organize a fancy dinner party to celebrate Luke and Emily’s engagement just as stress levels start pegging over into the red. This movie – it’s been a rumbling volcano, and it’s about to erupt. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Fair Play is an inspired blend of the high-pressure/high-finance drama of The Big Short or Wall Street — or even the HBO series Industry — with the sexy-psycho stuff of thrillers like Unfaithful or Body Heat . 

Performance Worth Watching: Dynevor is revelatory here, meshing perfectly with a fine-tuned, well-considered screenplay that gives her a character with room for exploring gray areas. Emily’s far from perfect, but is nevertheless sympathetic, and fully realized thanks to Dynevor’s performance.

Memorable Dialogue: This one’s such a doozy, I need to wholly decontextualize it: “If I can’t make you cry, I’m gonna make you bleed.”

Sex and Skin: Yes. Lots of it. (Note, some of it is troublingly violent.)

Our Take: CAPITALISM! Ain’t it grand? Sexism, too – can’t forget the sexism. But Fair Play is a far cry from 9 to 5 ; it fearlessly updates the male-female workplace power dynamic to modern standards, which is to say, it paints a portrait of male toxicity that pushes past amorality to near-fatality. And it’s riveting.

Domont zooms in tight on her leads, letting Ehrenreich (in easily his best performance) and Dynevor root out the complexities of their characters within gruelingly intense scenarios. As it turns out, Luke can’t handle the blow to his ego, and Emily might not be able to handle her newfound power. He turns to books and videos by a self-help guy who gives us a slight whiff of Tom Cruise in Magnolia ; she devotes herself to pleasing the big, rich boss and fitting in with the lads to the point where she agrees to celebrate a big win by not only joining them at the strip club, but impressing them by making it rain. 

Nobody with more than three functioning brain cells will be surprised to see Luke and Emily’s relationship erupt with fissures in the wake of such fundamental change. His character is either deeply altered – or truly revealed – as he comes to understand that he may simply not be good enough to acquire the job he’s worked toward his entire career, to meet the standards of, frankly, the horrible human beings that are his superiors. It’s compounded by the fact that the freshly empowered woman he fornicates with tries to be the aggressor in the bedroom, which just doesn’t seem to turn him on. Meanwhile, Emily seems to understand that this particular brand of professional power is inevitably fleeting, but pursues it anyway, perhaps because she’s come to realize that her fiance is, deep down, a tantrum-prone toddler who’s too flimsy to engage in self-reflection.

I think the core question of Fair Play is whether Emily and Luke are fundamentally flawed people, or if the world made them that way. Domont seems slightly noncommittal, which is a good thing – nobody’s perfect, and our tendency to want to side with Emily is challenged by her complexities. But Domont isn’t at all interested in presenting us with a movie about an unblemished princess who gets a stain on her dress. No, she wants to paint a portrait of individuals trapped in a world corrupted by men pursuing, yes, sex and money and power, all the “benefits” of amoral capitalism. The film doesn’t ask why, it just shows what it does to the human soul.

Our Call: STREAM IT. One more takeaway: You could make a lot of money in finance. Or you could be a perfectly happy teacher or postal clerk or sous chef, and thankful for it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Fair Play Review: A Hot Battle of the Sexes on Wall Street

Netflix's erotic psycho-romance is an intense battle of the sexes anchored by powerful performances and an exceptionally crafted script.

Netflix's latest steamy psychological thriller , Fair Play , is a wicked, intense, and deeply investing flick that explores the demise of a once healthy relationship after the escalation of one's career. Making her feature directorial debut, Chloe Domont (who made a name for herself writing and directing TV shows such as Ballers and Shooter ) offers up one of Netflix's biggest surprises of the year. It's a murky but beautifully shot flick that follows two ambitious investors who soon face the cut-throat and demoralizing world of finance. It explores how power, greed, and insecurity can implode a relationship in a tense drama that intimately examines office politics and sexism.

Making its debut at Sundance back in January, Fair Play quickly garnered much praise leading to a quick acquisition by the hit streaming service, Netflix, where it finally made its international debut at TIFF before later hitting theaters and dropping on Netflix. Audiences shouldn't pass on Fair Play . Whether you catch it in theaters or stream it from the comfort of your own home on Netflix, Fair Play is a film that mature adults shouldn't miss out on.

Domont's exceptionally written script slowly and subtly plants the seeds of an imploding relationship. Equally, her exploration of office politics and sexism is insightful and impactful. Alongside a powerful script, a couple of hypnotic performances from Phoebe Dynevor ( Bridgerton) and Alden Ehrenreich ( Solo: A Star Wars Story) make Fair Play one of the most intense and sexy movies of 2023.

The Battle of the Sexes

Fair Play follows Emily (Dynevor) and Luke (Ehrenreich), a passionate couple working for a cutthroat investment firm on Wall Street, New York. Their relationship is secretive as it's against company policy to date co-workers. They have a profound love and admiration for one another, leading to Luke getting down on one knee and proposing to Emily in a toilet. It may not sound romantic, but due to their passion, it strangely is. But when it's time for them to go to work, they take separate modes of transportation, and are very formal with one another when they're on the clock.

After hearing a rumor that Luke could potentially be in the running for a promotion, Emily receives a call at 2am to meet with the firm's CEO, who offers her the promotion over Luke. Emily reluctantly tells Luke the news. He smiles and congratulates her, showing his support for his partner. However, he does so with an undertone of anger, resentment, and disappointment. It isn't long before the economical and hierarchal differences between the two begin to drastically affect the relationship.

An Intense Psycho-Drama

Domont's script is an exceptional piece that comes to cinematic life with dark, tense psychological drama. Her meditation on the implosion of a once healthy and passionate relationship is utterly captivating. Emily and Luke's relationship at the beginning of the film is filled with passion and sex. The two are infatuated and incredibly supportive of one another.

But when Emily gets that promotion, audiences can feel Luke instantly slip away and resent her through Domont's subtle dialogue and camera work. Emily tries to help Luke get a promotion, but he is having none of it, ignoring Emily and getting snappy with her at home. Domont presents a tense dynamic that could explode any minute. Their anger and frustration with one another slowly but surely rises, leading to one almighty blowup.

Fair Play Cast and Character Guide

Equally, Domont explores the sexual dynamic between Emily and Luke, and it's decline. At first, Emily and Luke's carnal and passionate lust is fairly equal, but as Emily begins to progress in the firm, Luke's resentment leads to impotence. However, at the end of the film Luke's frustration comes out with force and results heavy-handed metaphor about male violence, but due to Domont's brilliantly crafted script, this moment works.

Adding to Domont's tense character dynamics is the film's caliginous cinematography, presenting a dark world of intermingled bitterness and desire, equally represented in the malicious world of finance and investors. Likewise, Fair Play sports some snappy editing, enhancing the suspenseful narrative Chloe Domont created, resulting in one of the more emotionally tense films of the year.

Office Politics and Sexism

The politics of any office workplace is toxic enough, but arguably none compare to the toxicity of an investment firm. Investors will leach on their co-workers' failures in order to trample over them, making their way to the top, brushing shoulders with the companies' cruel elites. The investment managers will look down on their analysts' and give them impossible tasks, along with blaming their analysts' for their own failure, and the hatred is mutual. Domont's script once again sheds light on the unbearably hostile and vampiric world of investing and finance, even more so than movies like The Wolf of Wall Street.

20 Quintessential Feminist Movies You Need to See at Least Once

Likewise, Domont explores the sexism of the workplace, and the effects that a woman in a powerful position has upon her subordinates, especially Luke. Equally, comments from her co-workers saying "maybe I should get a sex change" are true to life about grievances and sexism in the workplace . Luke believes that Emily had to sleep with her boss to get the job, which she never does. Her intelligence, skill, and determination is what got her the job, and it was not based on her gender. Luke couldn't grasp the idea that she was better and more suited to the role than he was, causing him to take it out on her in an honest display of jealousy and male fragility.

Career Best Performances

Both Phoebe Dynevor, and Alden Ehrenreich give career best performances in Fair Play. Dynevor delivers an empowering performance as Emily, proving her worth as a badass woman in power. Her performance is powerful and impactful as she single-handedly takes on a male dominated investment firm. Although her character is sadly walked upon the entire movie, the moment she truly cracks allows for a jaw-dropping moment that is only enhanced by Dynevor's impeccable performance.

Ehrenreich offers a flawless and deeply layered performance with a three-dimensional character that delves into the insane extremes of envy, leading to many breakdowns of varying degrees. He's simultaneously pathetic and detestable, handsome and grotesque. Between Domont's subtle and well-crafted character work, Ehrenreich's delivery, and Domont's script, there is enough chemistry and psychological tension in this film for days.

Fair Play releases on Netflix October 6th.

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Fair Play review: a cutting, messy thriller

“Fair Play is an imperfect, but relentlessly engaging thriller that is, above all else, an effective showcase for its two stars.”

• Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor's combative lead performances
• Chloe Domont's cool, controlled direction
• Franklin Peterson's slick, unobtrusive editing
• A third act that goes to louder and broader places than it should
• A disappointingly one-note finale

How does love die? Is it at the hands of one fatal blow, or dozens and dozens of tiny, nearly imperceptible cuts? In writer-director Chloe Domont’s feature film debut, Fair Play , the latter is the method of choice. The film, a corporate drama about a pair of secret workplace lovers whose romance is threatened when one is promoted over the other, is a thriller of a thousand knives. As a battle of wills between its two stars, the film is a gripping showcase for both Solo ‘s Alden Ehrenreich and Bridgerton  breakout Phoebe Dynevor, but it’s even more effective as a portrait of all the little slights, misinterpretations, and insecurities that can tear down even the strongest of romances.

In the months since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Fair Play has been repeatedly labeled as an “erotic thriller” in the same vein as 1990s hits like Eyes Wide Shut and Fatal Attraction . To compare it to those films, though, feels like a mischaracterization. While sex is a prominent part of the new drama, its importance to Fair Play ’s plot is slight compared to the role that gender-informed workplace politics plays in the disruption of its central romance. The film has more on its mind than just sex, and its most memorable moments involve Domont’s keen understanding of how the tiniest of pauses and most fleeting of looks can inspire doubt — both romantically and professionally.

Outside of one accidental, awkward smearing of blood, Fair Play ’s opening minutes don’t hint at the numerous dark turns its story will take. On the contrary, the film’s prologue paints its two leads, Emily (Dynevor) and Luke (Ehrenreich), as a pair of young, inseparable lovers who have a hard time keeping their hands off each other even in the most public of places. There’s only one problem: They’re not supposed to be together. The high-profile hedge fund firm where they both work has a strict non-fraternization policy — one that Luke and Emily have been breaking for months unbeknownst to their cutthroat boss, Campbell (a powerfully taciturn Eddie Marsan).

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Despite the challenges their unique situation presents, Emily and Luke’s first day back at the office in Fair Play could have, like the film’s prologue, been pulled right out of a lighthearted romantic comedy. The characters spend their hours at work sharing secretly flirtatious glances, covertly hashing out their nightly plans via text, and using business-related excuses to stand over each other’s desks. While not ideal, it’s clear that the two have found a way to make their clandestine relationship work that they both enjoy. That, of course, all changes when Campbell indirectly summons Emily to a bar at 2 a.m. and offers her the promotion that had previously been rumored to be Luke’s.

From there, the desynchronization of Emily and Luke’s relationship swiftly begins. When she returns home, he takes her initial silence and saddened expression as signs that she was sexually harassed by Campbell. Once she reveals the truth, Ehrenreich breaks out into a perfectly unconvincing smile and the lies, misinterpretations, and cracks in the foundation of their relationship only continue to gradually grow. It’s in these smaller moments, like Luke’s gritted teeth reaction to Emily’s promotion, when Domont’s writing and direction feel the most precise.

The director always seems aware of where to put the camera in order to highlight the growing rift between her two leads. Domont doesn’t need to do anything overly complicated to accomplish that, either. Instead, she’s able to use just a small drift away from Emily and a subtle focus shift to reveal Luke taking a few too many extra seconds to respond to one of Emily’s work messages. Later, she finds a way to block her actors so that both Dynevor and Ehrenreich are in the same frame at the exact moment when Emily unknowingly makes a sarcastic comment that Luke immediately takes too personally. Altogether, these moments only further emphasize the cool, controlled power of Domont’s direction.

At no point throughout Fair Play does it seem like the filmmaker is in danger of losing visual control of the film. The same cannot be said, however, for Domont’s script, which hints at several prickly, stomach-churning ideas about the intersection between power and love before settling on a conclusion that is too concrete and obvious. The progression of Luke and Emily’s romantic disintegration is delicately stretched across Fair Play ’s plot, but once the dysfunctional nature of their relationship has grown to disastrous levels, the film begins reaching toward the kind of climactic moments and decisions that are too broad for a movie that spends so much of its runtime being anything but.

Fair Play ’s narrative missteps only serve to magnify the power of its lead performances. Coming several years after her breakout turn in Bridgerton season 1, Dynevor gets the chance to give another potentially starmaking performance as Emily, a character whose moments of silent panic and frustration allow the actress to properly stretch her acting muscles onscreen. Ehrenreich, meanwhile, follows up his redeeming turn in Oppenheimer  earlier this year with another performance that reminds us, once again, why he was viewed as one of the most promising stars of his generation before he was briefly swallowed by the Lucasfilm machine.

For a film that isn’t afraid to take its story to legitimately violent places, it speaks to the strength of Domont’s filmmaking and the performances given by her leads that nothing in Fair Play cuts quite as deeply as the moment just before Luke seizes on an opportunity to ridicule his partner. Ehrenreich, eyes ringed red and face covered in unshaven stubble, cocks his head to the side and clicks his tongue seconds before delivering an undeserved insult. The words he hurls are disturbing on their own, but it’s the obviously unscripted physical movement that comes just before he speaks that truly reveals the intense resentment bubbling beneath the surface of Fair Play .

Once the time comes for those feelings to truly and completely bubble over, the film doesn’t quite know how to handle the inevitable mess that follows. In that sense, Fair Play ’s flaws reflect those of its characters, whose abilities to control the world and their lives don’t extend nearly as far as they think.

Fair Play is now available to stream on Netflix. For related content, we’ve rounded up all the best movies on Netflix , the best movies on Hulu , the best movies on Amazon Prime , and the best movies on Disney+ . For Netflix fans, check out the 10 most popular movies on Netflix right now .

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With its lush sets and perpetually probing camera, Decision to Leave looks and moves like any other Park Chan-wook film, but it reverberates with the same untempered passion present in Golden Age noirs like In a Lonely Place and Double Indemnity. Unlike those two films, though, which center their stories around a hot-tempered screenwriter and naïve insurance salesman, respectively, Decision to Leave follows another common noir archetype: the lovelorn detective (played here by Park Hae-il).

In the film’s opening moments, Hae-jun, the detective in question, lands a case involving the mysterious death of a recreational rock climber. The case, in typical noir fashion, leads to Hae-jun crossing paths with Seo-rae (a spellbinding Tang Wei), his victim’s gorgeous but eccentric widow. Perturbed by how disinterested she is in unpacking her abusive husband’s death, Hae-jun begins to tail and spy on Seo-rae, unaware that doing so will only further intensify his attraction to her. As far as noir plots go, this is about as familiar as it gets. With its nods to Hitchcock and lightly self-aware attitude, Decision to Leave makes it clear that it doesn’t mind treading the same narrative terrain as so many of the noir classics that have come before it, either.

At a time when anti-Semitic extremists are storming the U.S Capitol, running for office, and declaring war on Jewish people via social media, it might not be the best time for a movie that expects you to sympathize with Nazis. And yet, that hasn't stopped Operation Seawolf from sailing into theaters and on-demand streaming services this month.

The film, which follows the crew of a German U-boat during the waning days of World War II, casts Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) as German war hero Capt. Hans Kessler, who's ordered to lead the Nazis' remaining U-boats on a desperate (and likely fatal) mission to attack the U.S. on its own soil. As he and his crew make their way toward New York City in one final bid to turn the tide of war, Kessler finds himself struggling with both the internal politics of the ship and his own sense of duty as the Third Reich crumbles around him.

It’s spooky season this month, and that means the atrocity mine is currently being plundered by content creators across America. The three-episode docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, directed by noted documentarian Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost), is Netflix’s second project tackling the infamous cannibal/necrophiliac/serial killer to debut in a matter of weeks. It follows Ryan Murphy’s 10-hour miniseries drama, Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. This Dahmer double dose mirrors the barrage of Ted Bundy content that Netflix put out in early 2019, following up the Zac Efron-led drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile with the docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (also directed by Berlinger). 

As was the case with Bundy, Netflix is convinced that a multipronged examination of Dahmer could lead to a better understanding of his psychology and motivations, teaching viewers warning signs or expanding our capacity for empathy. Or maybe they recognize that people are addicted to unspeakable tragedies and will do anything they can to maximize viewers’ compulsion for true crime? Attempting to satisfy on all accounts, The Dahmer Tapes oscillates uneasily between character study, social commentary, and pure shock value, landing somewhere in between all three. In Dahmer's own words

Fair Play Review

If the BBC series Industry has taught us anything, it’s that the glossy, pressurised world of finance makes the perfect backdrop for tense, thrilling drama. Chloe Domont understands this, setting her feature debut at a hyper-competitive New York hedge fund, and using that environment as fuel for her twisted look at gender dynamics in a male-dominated workplace.

Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor is Emily; one of the few women in her office, and one of fewer again from a working-class background. She’s in a relationship with fellow assistant Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), though they keep their policy-breaching romance secret at work. When a colleague is unceremoniously fired, Luke assumes he’s next in line for the promotion — but when Emily gets the call, their partnership is thrown into chaos.

Fair Play is billed as an erotic thriller, and starts off strongly in that respect, with a sneaky rendezvous that depicts a messy part of sex that is rarely seen on screen — but the heat doesn’t turn up much from there. The leads are thrust into turmoil almost too quickly; we are barely given a chance to know them as a happy couple before their relationship deteriorates.

Dynevor is the standout, balancing Emily's vulnerability with steely strength.

What becomes more interesting is the lack of sex that ensues after Emily moves up the ladder, and how that acts as a symptom of the emotional drift between the pair. Luke tries putting on a smile, but soon descends into a hole of misogynistic self-help and manipulation. Emily attempts to assert herself as ‘one of the boys’, doing her best to put in a good word for Luke despite his clear lack of ability. Each has the upper hand at times, but the cleverness of Domont’s screenplay is that Emily’s sense of self is shattered so much more easily than Luke’s. She may have the money, the title and the office — but as a man, Luke always retains a certain kind of power, and he relishes using it, or pleading ignorance about it, as his perceived emasculation builds to an uncomfortable but well-handled crescendo in the third act.

Domont’s direction notches up the tension nicely. Slow camera pans across the office develop into more frantic, close-up fare as things spiral out of control, the repetitious blaring of Emily’s punishing 4:30am alarm emphasising the characters’ sleep-deprived state. Ehrenreich is convincing as a guy whose level of entitlement means he can’t accept his own mediocrity, Eddie Marsan is on intimidating form as the boss they are both so desperate to impress. But Dynevor is the standout, balancing Emily’s vulnerability with steely strength, and embracing the chance to move away from the corsets of Bridgerton and show a little more edge. Even when the plot veers mildly off-course, or starts to hint at a soapier kind of melodrama, her and Ehrenreich’s crackling chemistry will keep you gripped.

THE MOVIE CULTURE

Fair Play (2023) Movie Review & Summary: A Compelling Tale Of Trust, Love & Ambition

Fair Play is directed and written by Chloe Dumont and features standout performances by Phoebe Diner as Emily and Alden Aaronreich as Luke.

Fair Play Movie Cast

• Phoebe Diner as Emily
• Alden Aaronreich as Luke
• Eddie Marsen as Campbell
• Rich Sommer as Paul.
• Sebastian de Souza as Rory

Fair Play Movie Plot & Summary

Fair Play is a gripping psychological drama that explores the complexities of a young couple’s relationship when an unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund threatens to unravel their lives. As they navigate the treacherous waters of their high-stress jobs and a growing power struggle, their engagement is put to the test. The movie delves deep into the themes of jealousy, ambition, and the consequences of secrecy in a relationship.

Fair Play Movie Review

Fair Play is an engrossing dark psychological drama that will have your heart pounding from start to finish. It’s a film that expertly explores the complexities of a relationship under extreme pressure, all set against the backdrop of the fiercely competitive world of Wall Street. 

The cast of Fair Play deserves every accolade for their exceptional performances. Alden Aaronreich, previously known for roles in films like “Hail Caesar” and “ Solo ,” delivers a nuanced portrayal of Luke. His character undergoes a complex transformation, and Aaronreich adeptly navigates the emotional highs and lows. Luke’s journey from being a supportive boyfriend to a conflicted, jealous partner is a testament to Aaronreich’s acting prowess.

However, it’s Phoebe Diner’s portrayal of Emily that truly steals the spotlight. Her performance is nothing short of a tour de force. Diner immerses herself completely in Emily’s character, capturing her vulnerability, strength, and the gradual unraveling of her relationship with Luke. Her ability to convey the tumultuous emotions and inner turmoil that Emily experiences is truly remarkable. Diner’s on-screen presence is magnetic, and she flawlessly conveys the complex emotions of a woman torn between love and ambition. Her performance in Fair Play is not only a career-defining moment but also a shining example of her talent.

The Thriller Aspect Of Fair Play

Fair Play masterfully builds and sustains tension throughout its runtime. From the opening scenes to the climactic conclusion, the film keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The initial moments, filled with romantic engagement and hopeful dreams, serve as a stark contrast to the escalating turmoil that follows. The tension is not confined to external forces but rather emerges from the intricacies of Luke and Emily’s relationship.

As the couple grapples with the consequences of their secret engagement, the atmosphere becomes increasingly charged with palpable dread. Every interaction, every exchange of words, and every decision made by the characters heighten the suspense. Director Chloe Dumont skillfully plays with the audience’s emotions, creating an atmosphere where even the smallest actions reverberate with significance. The tension in Fair Play isn’t limited to external conflicts but is a reflection of the emotional turmoil brewing within the characters themselves.

While Alden Aaronreich has delivered impressive performances in the past, Fair Play allows him to showcase a previously unseen depth in his acting. His portrayal of Luke is a testament to his versatility as an actor. Aaronreich navigates the complexities of Luke’s character arc with finesse, portraying a man torn between love, ambition, and envy. The subtlety in his performance is commendable, making Luke a relatable yet flawed character.

Phoebe Diner’s role in Fair Play serves as a breakthrough moment in her career. While she had previously garnered attention for her work in “ Bridgerton ” and other projects, her portrayal of Emily is exceptional. Diner dives headfirst into the character’s emotional journey, showcasing her range as an actress. She conveys Emily’s inner turmoil, her yearning for love, and the toll of secrecy with raw authenticity. Diner’s performance is a revelation, and she carries the weight of the film with grace and intensity. Her chemistry with Aaronreich is electric, making their on-screen relationship utterly compelling.

Chloe Dumont’s Vision For The Movie

Chloe Dumont’s direction and writing in Fair Play are nothing short of masterful. She artfully navigates the narrative, guiding it from a place of hope and happiness to one of tension and despair. Dumont’s ability to capture the nuances of a crumbling relationship and the toxic atmosphere of a high-stakes workplace is nothing short of commendable. She weaves a story that is as thought-provoking as it is emotionally charged.

Dumont’s vision for Fair Play extends beyond the surface drama. She delves into the psychology of her characters, dissecting their motivations and desires. Her keen eye for detail is evident in every frame, as she crafts an environment that mirrors the characters’ emotional states. The pacing of the film is deliberate, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the characters’ lives and experiences. Dumont’s direction adds layers of complexity to the story, making it a rich and multi-dimensional narrative.

Fair Play benefits greatly from a well-crafted soundtrack that complements the escalating tension throughout the film. The music is strategically used to amplify the emotional impact of key scenes. It underscores the characters’ struggles and adds depth to their inner turmoil. The soundtrack becomes an integral part of the viewing experience, enhancing the overall emotional resonance of the film.

The cinematography in Fair Play is equally impressive. The director of photography skillfully captures the characters’ emotional journeys through visual storytelling. The camera work reflects the evolving dynamics within the relationship, from moments of intimacy to moments of conflict. Each shot is meticulously framed to convey the characters’ emotions and the claustrophobic nature of their predicament. The cinematography elevates the storytelling, allowing viewers to connect with the characters on a visceral level.

The Movie Culture Synopsis

Fair Play is a captivating psychological thriller that leaves a lasting impact. While some viewers may find the characters unlikable and the story uncomfortable at times, there’s no denying the film’s exceptional craftsmanship. It’s a well-acted, tension-filled exploration of how jealousy, ambition, and secrecy can unravel a once-loving relationship.

Should you watch it? Absolutely. Fair Play offers a unique and intense cinematic experience that will keep you engaged from start to finish. It’s a thought-provoking film that delves into the complexities of human relationships and ambition, making it a must-watch for fans of gripping psychological dramas. Don’t miss this compelling tale of love, ambition, and the high price of keeping secrets.

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Leave the World Behind: Ending Explained

This Movie Plot Is the Stuff of HR Nightmares

Netflix’s buzzy new erotic thriller, Fair Play, is never as provocative as it wants to be.

Hollywood has long been seduced by the world of high finance. All that money! All that power! The glossy skyscrapers that house hedge funds and investment banks look too polished to contain American psychos and Wall Street wolves . And yet, there they are—an assortment of memorable monsters, backstabbing and clawing their way to the top.

In Fair Play , a Sundance hit Netflix acquired for $20 million that begins streaming tomorrow, the writer-director Chloe Domont contrasts the coldness of the conference room with the steaminess of the bedroom. The couple at the story’s center, Emily (played by Bridgerton ’s Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), are colleagues keeping their relationship a secret. Their romance is against HR policy, and their effort to hide it—exchanging pleasantries in front of their colleagues, making sure they arrive separately at the office—is also a titillating game. At work, they’re the picture of buttoned-up efficiency. At home, they have sex on the floor. But when Emily gets promoted above Luke shortly after they get engaged, the tenuous line between their professional and personal lives blurs, threatening their forthcoming marriage.

That’s a tantalizing setup, but not much about Fair Play works beyond it. Domont valiantly attempts to examine how gender affects power dynamics; her script deconstructs corporate culture through a female perspective, and doubles as a treatise on the turmoil of ambition for women. Yet the shaky character development, melodramatic dialogue, and mismanaged tone result in a sloppy misfire. Fair Play positions itself as a psychosexual thriller, but it’s neither truly provocative nor all that sexy.

Read: The death of the sex scene

The problem begins with Emily and Luke’s unconvincing chemistry. They’re introduced as smitten lovers, but much of the movie that follows portrays them as near-strangers. When Emily tries to repair their relationship by enticing Luke to go to bed with her, she’s surprised that he disengages. This is meant to highlight the growing distance between them, but her shock and his sudden coldness feel implausible given their supposed history. Worse, the story never conveys anything about their personalities beyond the fact that they’re engaged and like being clandestine at work. They’re not really characters, but mouthpieces delivering on-the-nose lines—“The only man I let walk all over me is you,” Emily says—leaving Dynevor and Ehrenreich, both capable actors, lost in their roles.

Between the two, Luke suffers more from the shallow material. Almost immediately after Emily’s ascendance at the office, he resorts to spewing passive-aggressive comments and studying the work of a self-help guru who’s a thinly veiled men’s-rights-activist type. Indeed, every detail given about Luke renders him a cartoonish villain, and when he’s so obviously in the wrong, it lowers the dramatic stakes. The film reveals that he is only employed because of personal connections; before long, he accuses Emily of sleeping her way to the top, and criticizes her appearance. Such toxic behavior exists in real life, of course, but Luke’s meager characterization saps the story of tension.

The film eventually devolves into a deadly serious denouement. Without spoiling too much, violence plays a last-minute role, opting for a shock ending rather than an incisive conclusion. Just when the film begins to complicate the couple—Luke’s devotion to proving himself in his job may come from being surrounded by machismo; Emily starts drinking heavily to avoid him—it undermines itself in an ugly way.

Fair Play belongs to a recent wave of films that wrestle with gender politics by filtering their narrative—often about women making themselves small to help their male partners feel less emasculated—through a genre lens. Some, such as the horror-tinged Fresh , have successfully married stylish filmmaking with compelling characters. Others, such as Cat Person , the misguided adaptation of the viral short story , have added unnecessary drama to justify being a thriller. Fair Play belongs to the latter category. It struggles to fully engage with the challenging questions that fuel its narrative. Though the film constantly seems poised to deliver something insightful—about power imbalances in relationships, the fine line between work and play, the way people can make their job their entire identity—it never finds any depth, thus leaving the viewer with frustratingly little to care about. In the end, it just feels like one long tease.

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‘Fair Play’ Review: Casting a Floodlight on Invisible Labor

This documentary, a lucid look at household tasks based on Eve Rodsky’s best seller, pairs actionable guidance with testimony from real families.

By Natalia Winkelman

The advice included within Eve Rodsky’s book “Fair Play,” a guide to sharing domestic labor and achieving harmony in the home, won’t blow your mind. A woman’s time is as valuable as a man’s? Who knew! But there is a fortifying effect to arranging these axioms in sequence.

The documentary “Fair Play,” directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom ( “The Great American Lie” ) and based on Rodsky’s book, reproduces its lucidity by positioning interviews with real families alongside Rodsky’s directives. While its stylings, including perky music and cutesy graphics, can sometimes verge on trite, its insights and guidance are encouraging, actionable and necessary.

As our talking-head guide, Rodsky is amiable cinematic company. She describes growing up as the latchkey kid of a single mother, and how the strains she faced in her youth informed her values as a wife and mom. An admirable frankness guides her testimony: Rodsky recounts instances of feeling angry at her husband, and describes the specific ways that she coached him in the art of taking ownership over household tasks.

The film’s arguments hit harder in the wake of the pandemic’s lockdowns, which the documentary suggests found moms bearing the brunt of the stress. But most vital is the film’s look at where the United States falls short in its support of parents, particularly its limited access to subsidized child care. The burden of invisible labor can be mitigated on a case-by-case basis, but at the end of the day, it is the system that needs to change.

Fair Play Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon , Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Fair Play (2023)

October 2, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Fair Play , 2023.

Written and Directed by Chloe Domont. Starring Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Sebastian de Souza, Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer, Geraldine Somerville, Sia Alipour, Jim Sturgeon, Brandon Bassir, Jamie Wilkes, Freddy Sawyer, Patrick Fischler, Leopold Hughes, Jamie Wilkes, Buck Braithwaite, Laurel Lefkow, and Yacine Ramoul.

An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple’s relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement.

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Fair Play wouldn’t exist.

At around midnight, happy and horny partners/finance firm co-workers Emily and Luke (respectively played by Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich) of feature-length debut writer/director Chloe Domont’s Fair Play are settling into bed following intimately celebrating a probable job promotion for the latter. Their boss Campbell (Eddie Marsan), phones the former, requesting a meeting at a location dubbed the Golden Room. Needless to say, this sounds potentially scary and dangerous given that name and the time of night, with Emily visibly nervous before and after arriving. Thankfully, there is no misconduct of any kind. Instead, she is informed that she will receive the coveted promotion. However, upon her arrival back at the New York apartment she and Luke share, he sensitively and softly questions if anything happened to her.

This is important to note because, while Luke initially comes across as unbothered and supportive that his partner within this two-year relationship that goes against corporate policy has climbed the ladder before him, it’s painfully clear that he is hiding feelings of frustration and failure, but also that every time he comes back to interrogating his girlfriend about Campbell, it comes across less sincere and hollow. There is an unraveling of the psyche here, with Luke inexplicably convinced and delusional that he is not only a more dedicated and skilled worker than his partner Emily but that the only way she could have got that promotion is if she performed sexual favors for a boss that, while he is no saint, is also not interested in abusing power for that purpose.

This is a slow and gradual descent into self-imposed insecurity and humility that Chloe Domont excels at building upon, also thanks to an unsettling performance from Alden Ehrenreich expressing those unsavory characteristics. Meanwhile, Phoebe Dynevor is equally outstanding as a woman torn between being happy for herself and attempting to do everything possible to level the playing field when she shouldn’t have to, even if it means casting some attention on the relationship to get Luke the next promotion.

That still doesn’t stop Luke from feeling inadequate and incompetent, as he begins ignoring Emily’s wants and needs entirely, funneling all his extra time into a financing self-help book, something that he then uses to insult her appearance, declaring that she doesn’t dress assertive enough. There’s no denying that Luke is transitioning into a bitter jerk, but there is also some merit to his claims that Emily allows her superiors to walk all over her, such as repeatedly taking phone calls at midnight rather than setting business hour boundaries. Still, it’s apparent that no one walks over her more than Luke.

As a result, all the sexual energy Luke had is gone, despite Emily’s repeated efforts and desires to be intimate. This also calls into question what Luke enjoys about being intimate with Emily; does he love her or only find pleasure in controlling her? Frustrated that there is seemingly no way to bring this manchild back into a cheery mood, Emily begins acting out, frequently coming home wasted, typically after drinking with her other co-workers and boss, trying to fit in as one of the boys. That’s not to say that women shouldn’t be doing those things, but that, in this case, Emily is doing them for the wrong reasons, once again feeling pressured to prove herself in a male-dominated environment.

The decreased sex drive on behalf of one relationship member also means there isn’t much sex here. Furthermore, it also means anyone (especially Netflix, who seems to be promoting it that way) raving that Fair Play is an erotic thriller is either out of their minds or a walking red flag (probably both.) It is a story about the stock market finance world and the disheartening ways women fit into that picture, often perceived as annoying to work with (something that the men are more vocal about once she receives her promotion) and performing sexual favors to elevate their position. More importantly, it also shows how fast and dangerously someone could become corrupted by this line of thinking in the aftermath of their professional shortcomings.

Considering that Emily and Luke have been dating for two years, his every evolving moment into a complete psychopath doesn’t fully ring true; surely, presumably, that mental instability would have already popped up sooner. There is also an added dynamic that they have gotten engaged right before Emily’s promotion, leading to unnecessary drama involving her family setting up a party celebrating the occasion, which naturally comes to fruition at the worst imaginable time. The third night shift into unhinged thriller territory works, though, because it’s not about Luke but about Emily’s realization that she is a victim of abuse and the one simple thing he wants from him that he infuriatingly refuses to do. 

It is also easy to appreciate that Chloe Domont isn’t necessarily criticizing the nature of this relationship as right or wrong. The viewers can judge for themselves whether they should have got together in the first place. Fair Play is about the volatility and insecurity that can quickly rise to the surface inside men who want to be successful, experiencing setbacks and being confronted with the truth that they are inferior to their partners, and how that responsive behavior has negative effects on their significant other as they whatever they can to make them happy.

Every questionable action Emily makes here is a by-product of her horrible situation, something people must realize when they try to armchair critique who is the good person and bad person in such broken relationship dynamics. Toxicity breeds toxicity. Unfortunately, some men are pathetic and will never find happiness without control. Meanwhile, Chloe Domont has tight and firm control over Fair Play , a gripping debut exploring power, gender, and sexual dynamics.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Fair play   photos.

In the film, inspired by Eve Rodsky's New York Times best-selling book Fair Play, Eve takes us on her journey to change the unfair work dynamic in her own home and in society at large. By following three families on their own journeys to find balance at home, we see how even the smallest fights around dirty dishes are actually linked to systemic issues affecting millions of families across the globe.

Genre: Documentary

Original Language: English

Director: Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Producer: Jessica Congdon , Gretchen Miller , Jennifer Siebel Newsom , Reese Witherspoon , Sara Rea , Sonia Slutsky

Writer: Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Runtime: 1h 35m

Production Co: Hello Sunshine, The Representation Project

Cast & Crew

Melinda Gates

Katie Porter

Jennifer Siebel Newsom

Jessica Congdon

Gretchen Miller

Reese Witherspoon

Sonia Slutsky

Executive Producer

Jen Bradwell

Film Editing

Daniel Lessner

Original Music

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10 Movies Like Fair Play to Watch Next

Fair Play is a delicious blend of erotic thrills and money-hungry characters on Wall Street. Phoebe Dynevor ( Bridgerton ) and Alden Ehrenreich ( Oppenheimer ) play hard-drinking hedge-fund analysts who are secretly dating whenever they're not sweating through their suits in their high-pressure work environment. It's dark, sexy, sometimes humorous content — and don't get us started on that killer ending sequence . Indeed, what makes Fair Play worthy of watching is in ever-shifting dynamics between Dynevor's Emily and Ehrenreich's Luke.

We've seen these film components over the decades across many films and genres. From the thrills of Gone Girl and Black Swan to the coporate politics of The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short , we've compiled a list of classics for fans of the Netflix film to consume next. Here are 10 movies like Fair Play that are worth checking out.

Gone Girl (2014)

It's exciting to know that David Fincher's The Killer has hit the masses. Between that and Fair Play , Gone Girl is certainly worth a revisit. Based on the acclaimed novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, the film takes place in Missouri, where former NY-based writer Nick (Ben Affleck) and wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) live a seemingly peaceful existence — that is, until Amy goes missing, and Nick becomes the prime suspect in the case. A nightmarish media blitz soon unravels the couple's hidden lives, ultimately leading to betrayal, lies, murder and more.

How It's Like Fair Play

Gone Girl and Fair Play are similar thanks to tone, the erotic-thriller genre they can both fall into, plus quick-witted characters and female personas outsmarting the males. "Girl power," as the Spice Girls once said.

Stream on Max

Malcolm & Marie (2021)

Before the acclaimed second season of Euphoria was released, writer/director Sam Levinson teamed up with Zendaya and John David Washington for a monochrome meltdown of emotions in Malcolm & Marie , an often hard-to-watch depiction of a modern couple in Hollywood. Playing out in real time during a night following a film premiere, the couple starts to bicker about their careers, true love and more.

Malcolm & Marie and Fair Play are both erotic in nature and involve a central woman protagonist rightfully having the upper hand against their verbally abusive male counterparts. In both films, at first we think it's the guy who will soak up any sort of power and appreciation across the storyline, but then we realize we had it wrong all along.

Stream on Netflix

Black Swan (2010)

Darren Aronofsky's gritty masterpiece, Black Swan centers on Nina (Natalie Portman), an ambitious young ballerina who takes on the lead role of an opening production of Swan Lake , despite the anxiety-inducing competition of newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis). Nina can do White Swan, while femme fatale Lily is seemingly a master of the Black, as their unnerving director (Vincent Cassel) keeps reiterating. A terrifying rivalry ensues, and Nina's mental health is pushed to the brink.

Black Swan and Fair Play both share the components of toxic masculinity, eroticism, psychological thrills and a strong female protagonist doing whatever it takes to achieve her career dream or goal.

Rent on Prime Video

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Revolutionary road.

Sam Mendes' roller-coaster of a relationship drama, Revolutionary Road , follows Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April ( played by Kate Winslet ) navigating the expected norms of suburban Connecticut life. Then they decide to rebel and commit to moving to Paris on a whim, which unnerves the neighbors around them. Featuring acclaimed supporting turns by Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, and David Harbour, Revolutionary Road is a can't miss for actors in training.

Revolutionary Road and Fair Play both center on loving relationships in utter turmoil as they try to navigate a high-pressure society. Neither film has a happy conclusion, with true love ending in destructive ways.

Related: Fair Play Review: A Hot Battle of the Sexes on Wall Street

Michael Clayton (2007)

Michael clayton.

George Clooney nails the titular role in Michael Clayton , a "fixer" at the corporate law firm who takes care of his employer's dirty work. Clayton faces the biggest challenge of his career when one of the firm's attorneys (Tom Wilkinson) has a mental breakdown during a class-action lawsuit that means everything to partners Clayton bows down to. Featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Tilda Swinton playing a villainous lawyer on the other side of the case, Michael Clayton should be revisited by Andor fans, since Tony Gilroy helmed both projects.

Michael Clayton and Fair Play are dark, sterile, suspenseful thrillers about high-brow businessmen and women, and the dangerous secrets that lurk in their private lives. What are your colleagues hiding? What lengths would you go to, in order to please your boss? They also share the component of principal characters who are guilt-ridden for a variety of reasons.

Rent on AppleTV

The Ides of March (2011)

The ides of march.

In The Ides of March , Clooney plays Gov. Mike Morris, whose campaign seems like a future success story thanks to his ambitious press secretary Stephen (Ryan Gosling). But after word gets out that Stephen takes both a meeting with Morris' opponent's campaign manager ( played by Paul Giamatti ) and an interest in one of Morris' young interns (Evan Rachel Wood), a series of heart-pounding events unfold that collectively threaten Morris' chances at winning his next election.

The Ides of March and Fair Play both involve the scandalous private lives of high-brow businesspeople getting exposed after secrets start bleeding into the workplace. Talk about "toxic work environment" when we see characters played by Gosling and Dynevor get screamed at during certain scenes in their respective films.

Wall Street (1987)

Wall street.

There was an inferior sequel years later, but the original Wall Street takes place amid the New York Stock Exchange in '80s, where stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) does whatever he can to brush shoulders with the head honchos like Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). Gekko ends up showing Fox the ropes when it comes to insider trading. Their dangerous scheming ultimately threatens the livelihood of Fox's dad (Martin Sheen, Charlie's real-life father), leaving Fox in the ultimate Wall Street pickle.

Wall Street and Fair Play both involve power-hungry stockbrokers who explore the daring possibilities of insider trading. "It's basically public knowledge," Ehrenreich tells his secret fiancee at one point during his Netflix film. That couldn't end well...

Stream on Paramount+

Related: Fair Play Cast and Character Guide

American Psycho (2000)

American psycho.

American Psycho is set in the year 1987, where the now-infamous "mergers and acquisitions" businesman Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) secretly moonlights as a sexually charged serial killer. No, he's not out "returning videotapes" every night. Willem Dafoe plays the detective investigating the crimes, while Reese Witherspoon plays his perpetually disappointed fiancee. And it's Bateman's well-meaning but nosy secretary (Chloë Sevigny) who might just expose Bateman once and for all.

American Psycho and Fair Play both involve successful NYC businesspeople as central characters who also possess double lives as sexually ravenous and sometimes violent individuals.

Stream on Peacock

The Big Short (2015)

Adam McKay's black-comedy masterpiece centers on the housing-market collapse in 2008, when Wall Street guru Michael Burry (Bale) bets against the housing market, a bold strategy that draws the attention of banker Jared Vennett (Gosling), hedge-fund wiz Mark Baum (Steve Carell) and more. Featuring a plethora of A-list celebs playing themselves, The Big Short becomes a unique hybrid film that paved the way for future similarly-toned projects.

The Big Short and Fair Play involve sharp-tongued, sharp-witted businesspeople who have the last laugh on society, seemingly able to predict where the stock market is headed before their peers — and the rest of the world, for that matter.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

The wolf of wall street.

Martin Scorsese has kept busy in the last decade, dating back to his 2013 crowdpleaser, The Wolf of Wall Street , about Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), who takes the NY Stock Exchange by storm starting in his early-20s in the late-80s. Together with his drug-loving right-hand man (Jonah Hill) and similarly inclined group of degenerate brokers, Belfort makes millions by scheming naive investors out of millions. But "Karma is a b****," as they say, as the feds ultimately come after his gang, with an FBI investigator played to perfection by Kyle Chandler.

The Wolf of Wall Street and Fair Play both center on hard-partying stockbrokers who are sometimes blind with ambition, thereby leading to dangerous mistakes that could cost them their careers and more.