'Fair Play' Strives but Fails to Say Something Important

The relationship thriller Fair Play originally debuted at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it was gleefully scooped up by Netflix as one of its next big “gets” for awards season. The film desperately wants to have deep and meaningful conversations about gender roles, expectations, and the concept of the “men left behind” who are “…experiencing the loss of [traditional male] stereotypes, but they can’t process the loss emotionally.” Although stylish with lofty aims, this film doesn’t quite reach the heights of its obvious ambitions nor open the door to the discussions that writer/director Chloe Domont is trying to provoke.

Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) is a young, ambitious analyst on Wall Street, secretly dating her coworker Luke (Alden Ehrenreich). Her character is introduced while she’s smoking alone at a wedding reception. (There’s already something off about this – shouldn’t she be vaping? Young people smoking real cigarettes is so twenty years ago.) The relationship between Emily and Luke is established before we see them at work together, and they seem to have a sweet, loving, and lustful partnership. They get engaged privately after sneaking off to have sex. Emily wears her ring proudly overnight in their shared apartment but takes it off before heading to the office.

Dating coworkers is against policy at their firm, where they’re both mid-level. Emily and Luke pretend so hard they aren’t together. They even take separate commuting routes and make public small talk to establish independent personal lives. When their boss has a violent meltdown after being fired, Emily hears a rumor Luke will be promoted to that position. They later celebrate with sex, and Luke says they can finally go public about their relationship once they're both promoted.