Netflix drama highlights the grey
Tension is palpable from start to finish in this drama set in a New York private equity brokerage that buys and sells stock in deals worth millions. Analysts compete to give compelling advice to their managers, their jobs are at stake every minute.
Work stress, starting with alarms at 4.30am, and phone calls that must be taken at all hours, is alleviated with alcohol, cigarettes and sex.
Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) are analysts who secretly co-habit, against company policy. Their relationship thrives on its secrecy.
They get engaged during a passionate sex scene, locked in a bathroom during Luke’s brother’s wedding, but when the soundtrack features Donna Summer’s I Love to Love You Baby, its mournful, wistful tone gives a clear idea that things aren’t quite right for Em and Luke.
Problems appear one after the other.
A senior portfolio manager goes crazy, throwing things and breaking the furniture when sinister, ruthless boss Campbell (Eddie Marsan) sacks him for giving a recommendation that has lost the firm money.
But nothing prepares Em and Luke for the problems that beset them.
When Luke resorts to a self-help course, Em is temporarily derailed by some of the tactics he picks up on the way, he hopes, to the top.
As Luke watches a video that tackles tone and demeanour in the workplace, power switches from him to Em and back again.
Writer/director Chloe Domont told Bazaar she wasn’t interested in making something that was black and white.
She wanted to lean into the greys as much as possible, drawing parallels between her own experiences as a woman navigating Hollywood and those of women working in corporate finance.
She says: “I didn’t want to make Luke a clear villain.
“Yes, I do think he crosses the line at some point in the film.
“But up until that point, I did want the audience to go back and forth or empathise with [both of] the characters at different points.”
Alex (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction (1987) and Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) in Promising Young Woman (2020) are characters in two other psychosexual dramas that deal with sexual politics, but Alex’s story is rather anti-feminist and Cassandra goes a bit too far down the vengeance track.
Em handles her situation more realistically than Alex or Cassandra, more politically soundly, too, but does she stay loyal to Luke for too long, and is she too soft on him?
Most will agree the male analysts on the brokerage team are misogynists, like their boss Campbell, but there’ll likely be less agreement when it comes to the way Em deals with Luke in the dying days of their relationship.
Phoebe Dynevor, a long way from Bridgerton, and Eddie Marsan are well cast, as is Alden Ehrenreich who imbues his role with light and shade.
With a good script and a gripping plot, Fair Play is worth seeing.
■ Highly recommended
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