This year is packed full of directorial debuts. Typically these are relegated to the fringes of the indie community unless they’re blockbusters, but this year seems special in that some of the absolute best films of the year are from first timers. What’s more is that they’re at the forefront of conversation AND landing their places on huge screens and streaming giants. Enter “Fair Play,” a festival darling and critically acclaimed erotic thriller from first timer Chloe Domont. Packed with sex appeal and thrills, the film brings the sexy back to the world of finance in a riveting cat and mouse game of workplace politics and gender power dynamics.
I can’t believe I was going to skip “Fair Play” at TIFF, because seeing it in a giant theater with a sold out crowd on a huge silver screen (the way Nicole Kidman intended) is how a movie like this should be experienced. “Fair Play” ranks as one of the sharpest scripts of the year, and delivers a riveting drama that never gives you a chance to catch your breath once it starts cooking.
Written and directed by Chloe Domont, “Fair Play” follows newly engaged couple Emily (Pheobe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) who both work at a cutthroat hedge fund as analysts. Their relationship is a secret from their workplace, and both go out of their way to appear as though they barely know each other. However, when a huge promotion is unexpectedly given to Emily, the entire facade and dynamic of their relationship begins to change and pushes them both the brink of possible destruction. There is beauty in this simplicity of its plot, and to go further into how it all unfolds and where it leads would be a huge disservice. “Fair Play” is masterfully crafted in its narrative, taking something rather old fashioned in its sort of sleazy, skinemax guilty pleasure roots and elevating it all with a modern twist of setting it in the world of high finance and cooking with far more in its mind than a little skin and sexy time.
There is so much to love about this film, but what really makes “Fair Play” so exhilirating is how, beneath all of its greed, sex, corporate backstabbing, and downright misogyny, Domont’s razor sharp script makes it just a damn good movie. She has a very clear vision about what she wants to say about all of these topics, and utilizes the foreign world of finance to navigate through a crumbling relationship that was probably never all that great to begin with. She is so willing to engage with these themes, and “Fair Play” holds nothing back in its exploration. Whether you understand wall street mumbo jumbo is irrelevant. Domont is smart enough to not treat her audience like children and over explain it to them. THIS his how you craft an engaging story with characters we can’t help but invest in, and every new twist and turn keeps us glued to the screen and guessing right until the end. “Fair Play” is the kind of film tremendously hurt by its Netflix release, as its undercurrent of deeper thematic commentary doesn’t quite translate in the comfort of your own home as it would in a dark theater.
There’s a griminess to “Fair Play,” and the fearlessness with which Domont’s script is willing to grapple with its topics paired with its gorgeous cinematography of Manhattan streets, tiny apartments and skylines of towering greed driven buildings all communicate a seedy underbelly of middle class life in New York. These things are even further elevated by the incredible lead performances, particularly from Dynevor who devours the role with passion and brilliance. I’m not a “Bridgerton” fan, so Dynevor is new to me, but her performance has skyrocketed her to the top of my list of performers to watch. In a less competitive year, Dynevor could very well find herself in the awards race. Granted, the old stuffy Academy members would have to be willing to give credence to a sexy and sometimes sleazy erotic thriller like “Fair Play,” and while I’m sure they aren’t there yet, one can dream. She is simply captivating and mesmerizing, turning in a star making performance from a script that gives her plenty to sink her teeth in too.
Ehrenreich is excellent as well, an actor who has had “Solo” held against him for far too long. “Fair Play” gives him yet another opportunity to shine, and he is more than up for the challenge. The two are terrific together, their chemistry off the charts even as we watch their relationship disinegrate over the course of the film.
Domont is clearly fixated on gender and power dynamics, and lets both of her stars expound upon these themes in their performances as the story drives them further and further down the rabbit hole of self realization and despair and discovery of who the other truly is. “Fair Play” is smart enough to never outright mock the toxic masculinity or incel ideology Ehrenreich is asked to portray, but rather exposes how quickly those things can appear in men who posture about not being any of them and how dangerous they can be when allowed to take hold and run unchecked. This may sound like “Fair Play” is a preachy feminist manifesto (which shouldn’t bother you if it was and if it does, heads up you may be a Luke and exactly who this film is for), but Domont’s script (again) walks the tight rope in a perfect balance to never travel into that territory. “Fair Play” fairly critiques both sides, willing to expose the ugliness of a “nice guy” complex while simultaneously examining the shrewdness of women surviving in a man’s world all while using the harsh world of hedge funds as a backdrop.
The escalation of events and character transformation in “Fair Play” is part of its dark and twisted charm, and it culminates in one of the best comeuppance endings I’ve seen in a while, with a last line that is so delectable it will leave your mouth agape when it fades to black. Magic happens when a razor sharp script meets great performers under the helm of a confident director, and “Fair Play” has all three in spades. I left theater buzzing and instantly launched the film into my current top 10 of the year.
Yes, “Fair Play” is really THAT good. Even if all of Domont’s brilliant themes injected into her script don’t resonate with you and you’re not particularly looking for something that deep, fear not. While “Fair Play” is packed with thought provoking ideas, its surface has everything else you could want in a sexy thriller; sex, greed, twists, turns and two really hot people behaving badly often.
Don’t skip “Fair Play,” folks. And see it in theaters if you can.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars
“Fair Play” is in select theaters Sept 29th and streaming on Netflix Oct 6th. You can watch the trailer below.
