FAIR PLAY (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Fair Play, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 28, 2023

Beginning with a tantalizing premise about how career ambitions and income can affect a romantic relationship, Fair Play quickly spirals out of control. Writer/director Chloe Domont clearly takes this material seriously, and that tone dooms this over-the-top, unbelievable melodrama that's as subtle and nuanced as the notion of characters yelling the movie's message at each other.

That actually happens here, by the way, in a scene that begins as contrived and escalates into the sort of theatrics one might expect in bad community theater. It finally descends into a moment so miscalculated and distasteful that we have to wonder how such a relatively clever and considered setup transforms itself into something so embarrassing.

As for the premise, it is pretty smart and grounded. The story revolves around Emily (Phoebe Dynevor, whose attempted American accent distractingly breaks as the volume of the dialogue rises—meaning the third act is even more awkward) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich, whose ability to wordlessly communicate so much is sorely let down, in a very different way, by his character's eventual turn). They've been dating in secret for about two years, since they both work at the same New York City hedge fund—one that has an official policy of its employees not defecating where they eat.

They're very much in love, although Luke's proposal, Emily's acceptance, and a couple of intimate moments involving menstrual blood aren't nearly enough to convince us that was ever the case as soon as the mutual resentment begins. One day at work, Emily overhears some gossip that Luke is in line to take over a managerial position, just left vacant after an uncomfortable firing.

Domont's thematic intentions here are pretty fuzzy, mostly because the movie loses its grip on realistic human behavior and never seems to have an understanding of the financial world. Either or both of those things, it seems, are the culprits here, causing so much tension between our allegedly loving couple and so many problems that result in or caused by the main characters, as well as a couple others, having private and public outbursts. Is there something to this line of work that turns people into petty, jealous, and greedy animals, or does it attract people who are like that?

It doesn't matter, really, because Luke becomes all of those things and more when he doesn't get that promotion. Instead, Emily receives a late-night call from Campbell (Eddie Marsan, an oasis of a consistent performance of a believable, if slimy, character), the company's head, to meet him at a bar. He offers her the job that Luke has become convinced would be his, and while he says he's proud of his fiancée, Luke definitely isn't happy about feeling as if he lost what he thought he deserved.

The basics here are sound. Emily tries to fit in and spare her fiancé's hurt feelings by hyping his contributions and potential to Campbell. Meanwhile, Luke becomes more and more despondent and bitter, watching Emily make deals, go out with other managers to fancy bars, and earn approval, as well as one sizeable commission, from Campbell, a man he idolizes. There's also something here about Luke becoming obsessed with a motivational speaker, whose philosophy Emily finds objectionable, but whatever any of that has to do with Luke's change or really becoming who he was in the first place was clearly left unfinished in the script or cut out in editing.

That means Luke becomes the antagonist, not out of nowhere, but surely with such haste that it comes across as Domont getting to the point without developing it on a narrative level. The relationship becomes a resent-filled and sexless matter of routine, and seemingly so that the couple's climactic breakdown can take place under the most dramatic—and forced—circumstances possible, there's a subplot about Emily's mother telling people her daughter is engaged to a co-worker and setting up a party for the couple without either one's knowledge or approval.

The most important scene here, in which the central characters let everything they have been thinking and feeling rise to the surface, isn't just questionable, then, because of what happens, erupting in one sudden act of violence and rising toward another that makes one character into the worst-possible version of who these characters have become. It's also unconvincing in how it occurs, considering the public setting in or near the presence of a large crowd of witnesses and people who could potentially help or stop everything happens before it does.

Like finance and human behavior, though, logic doesn't figure into Fair Play. It has a point to make, and for as obvious and blatantly made as that point is, trying to overlook the movie's many shortcomings isn't worth the effort.

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