Fair Play (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Emily is a financial analyst in NYC, first seen with her back turned to a party as she smokes alone outside. Luke materializes and ushers her back inside to his brother's wedding, where she's ogled by other men (called "the prettiest girl in the room" by Luke's uncle with no respect to the bride) before she retires to a bathroom. Luke and Emily are coworkers. They are sometime competitors and friends with clear chemistry. They are also passionate covert lovers, and as they use their time in the bathroom for spontaneous carnal pleasure, her menstrual blood stains their fancy attire and Luke's face. When a ring falls out of his pocket, Luke immediately proposes. It's a devastating opening sequence, equally horny and foreboding, and we know there is no chance this will end well.

It's not certain, yet, whether this will be a tragic drama or erotic thriller, the tension between which propels the first third of Fair Play, an oddly titled but eminently watchable Netflix original release. Their lives continue on in remarkably compatible fashion (from what we see), as they can scarcely keep their bodies off each other and also flawlessly dance as they go about their lives and work. As their romantic relationship transgresses company policy, they keep it a secret while angling for promotions at the firm. It helps endear them to us -- we know precious little about these characters -- that they are played by Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, both beautiful and skilled performers who make the most of their nonverbal screen presence and interpersonal chemistry.

In a riveting inciting incident, a portfolio manager quits in a rage and rumors run about who will be promoted next. Emily hears it will be Luke and shares this detail with him; almost immediately, they both learn Emily is to win the position. It's a chilling scene as both performers flip their script, so to speak, and the characters wrestle with their new power dynamic. Jealousy and entitlement ooze from both would-be partners, but there's a nasty edge to Luke's emasculation, and I was reminded more than once of the dark satire in American Psycho, though this film features almost no humor at all. Ambition is here tragically Shakespearean, and the business rearrangement bleeds -- like their indiscretion at the wedding -- into their private life. Director and writer Chloe Domont calculatedly visualizes the literal rift growing between their bodies in shots of them in bed and passing in the office; Domont includes this in the screenplay as well, injecting venom into otherwise standard professional-speak.

It's not too spoiler-y to share with you that this is ultimately an erotic thriller like we rarely see anymore (the last decent ones I can recall are Deep Water and Careful What You Wish For), and it feels like something Adrian Lyne would have been proud of. But Domont is playing a much more riveting game here, one specific to her interests, which makes sense as this is her directorial debut. Frankly, lots of it was lost on me, but her astonishingly detailed business jargon-as-dialogue feels a character unto itself: this isn't the verbose world of Mad Men so much as the rapid-fire loaded language of The West Wing. I'd like to read the screenplay for better comprehension, but hints of much more than we see are dropped verbally, such as indications of their differing socioeconomic backgrounds. 

While the early bloodbath (sorry, not sorry) might indicate a turn a la Fatal Attraction, the film stops well before it approaches violent thriller territory. Instead, Domont dives headfirst into passive aggression, especially when it comes to Luke staying with Emily but denying sex, and further undermining her in the workplace and as a businesswoman with misogynistic comments. In fact, I was reminded more than once of Gaslight, especially when the climax forces a reckoning between the ex-lovers, though the hot topic term is not actually uttered in the film. We're never sure if they were truly equals in terms of work ethic or acumen, but it is clear eventually that Emily has worked and is working much harder to achieve her goals while Luke stews in his own bitterness and laments not having her successes despite doing less to earn it. In this way, Domont cleverly shows -- and Ehrenreich masterfully demonstrates -- that the violence at the heart of white masculinity is born of weakness, not strength. I'd have liked a bit more of this to be dramatized, if only because the financial lingo disinterests me, but this is entirely Domont's pet project, and her icy command of the material makes for a nasty good time.