Fair Play - Review Thread

Fair Play is an independently produced drama that made a bit of a splash at Sundance and was eventually picked up by Netflix after what was reportedly a sizable bidding war, but I must say the buzzed died down quite a bit in between its Part City debut and it’s eventual release by the streamer. I’ve heard the movie described as a revival of the “erotic thriller” but it’s probably actually seems to be more in dialogue with 1990s reactionary provocations like Disclosure or Oleanna, which were very interested in looking at the emerging mores around sexual harassment and asking “but what if the women are lying bitches.” This isn’t to say that this film has the same dubious outlook of those movies but there are certain echoes. The film is about a couple who both work at a major hedge fund and who need to keep their relationship secret because of a company culture that looks down on office romances. As the film goes on it sort of becomes a portrait of why discouraging such a romance is frowned upon as the two get into a sort of downward spiral of jealousy and resentment after she gets a promotion above him and becomes conflicted about how much she’s willing to help his career and he starts making a lot of nasty assumptions about how she got ahead. That’s a concept that could stand to go to some questionable places and there were points at which it seemed to go dangerously into “both sidesing” territory but I think it ultimately does mostly come down on the right side of things. What’s less successful is the basic execution. The stock trading elements of the film never felt terribly authentic to me, which granted isn’t the main point but it is an issue. I also wasn’t terribly impressed by its visual style, and Phoebe Dynevor didn’t do much for me either. It’s a competent movie for the most part and there are worse ways to spend an evening watching something on Netflix but it never really seemed good enough to be worthy of its attempted provocations to me.