In a cutthroat business environment, a seemingly mellow and fair-minded mid-level employee (Alden Ehrenreich) can’t quite handle his whipsmart fiance (Phoebe Dynevor) getting promoted over him, and their relationship suffers accordingly.
Fair Play appears to be another feminist film, in short, in which the guy in a hetero relationship is revealed to be less formidable than the woman, or, to put it more bluntly, is something of an insecure weenie.
Directed and written by Chloe Domont, and shot in Serbia. The Netflix debut happens on 10.13.23.
From Brian Tallerico’s 1.22.23 Sundance review: “After a project manager is ruthlessly fired, Luke (Ehrenreich) thinks he’s getting the promotion, but it ends up going to Emily (Dynevor) instead. When the power dynamic shifts at the office, it eats away at Luke. He takes bigger risks, hoping for a huge windfall. He signs up for shallow online courses about confidence and business strategy. And he seems to cringe when Emily even takes control in sexual situations, feeling emasculated.
“For her part, Emily becomes more invested in work, trying to impress a cutthroat boss (Eddie Marsan) and losing all of her work/life divide. She comes home late and often drunk. Emily and Luke start to drift into separate lives, and neither makes much effort to stop it.
“Domont’s script for Fair Play is a sharp slow burn; it’s very dialogue-heavy movie but still plays like a thriller. As Emily and Luke get more competitive, their filters in arguments start to fade away and they say the kind of things that change a relationship forever. Domont captures the insanely stressful world of finance with remarkable detail (working on Billions probably helped), but the movie really hums in Emily and Luke’s apartment.
“Ehrenreich deftly captures the kind of guy who knows exactly what to say about not being jealous, even though he doesn’t quite believe it as it comes out of his mouth. This guy has been working for this job his entire life, and he’s seeing someone else get there first. He’s too shallow to figure out how to reconcile his frustration at work with his love for Emily, especially when they’re so connected.”
