Fair Play (Movie)

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    Chloe Domont on Her Dangerous Date Movie, ‘Fair Play’

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    The writer-director discusses her Netflix film about power dynamics within relationships, and how it might end up facilitating breakups.All is indubitably not fair in love, war, or “Fair Play,” the crackling feature debut from the writer-director Chloe Domont that became a sensation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. (It sold there to Netflix for $20 million, and is now streaming on the platform).Phoebe Dynevor (“Bridgerton”) and Alden Ehrenreich (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”) star as Emily and Luke, ambitious young junior analysts at the same Manhattan hedge fund. Their seemingly blissful relationship is upended when she gets a big promotion and he doesn’t; a fraught psychosexual showdown ensues. A Southern California native, Domont, 36, sat down for an interview in New York to discuss male fragility, the state of erotic thrillers and making “a date movie from hell.” Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.You had mostly been directing for hire on premium-cable shows like “Billions.” What made you want to tell this story?It was many years of having this feeling as my career started to take off in TV that my success didn’t totally feel like a win, because of the kinds of men I had been dating — that me being big made them feel small. It just made me realize how much hold these ingrained power dynamics still have over us, and that was something that I wanted to put onscreen and explore.Was it always your intention to set it in the world of finance?No, for me it was about getting the beats of the story, how the relationship would implode once the power flipped. That was the heart of it. But I had some friends in that world, and it just felt like something that I could organically write from even though I had no experience in it.The highs and lows, the stakes of that kind of work environment, felt similar to the stakes of the film and TV industry: You slip up once, and you can be out. And the work-hard play-hard aspect, too, I feel like is in both. It was another male-dominated industry that is hard for women to come up in — and when they do, they’re treated differently, as we all know. Alden Ehrenreich, left, with Phoebe Dynevor in “Fair Play.”NetflixHow did you go about learning the jargon?I took a bunch of hedge fund guys out for drinks! [Laughs] I got them drunk and just started asking them very simple questions. It was really like learning a new language, like Spanish or coding or something. And honestly that was the easy part. Writing the emotional arcs of the characters, that was much more challenging.The film really hinges on your two leads’ performances, and their chemistry. How did you find them?When you get [casting] lists, you get the same 15 names that everyone gets. But the casting director mentioned Phoebe because of “Bridgerton,” so I watched the pilot and I just thought she had it. There was a vulnerability but also a fierceness, an untapped fury that I could unleash. There was also something exciting about cutting off the corset and putting her in a suit and turning her into a shark.Alden I had loved since [the 2016 Coen brothers comedy] “Hail Caesar,” But I knew that it was going to take a very confident man to go to Luke’s level of insecurity. Other male actors that I had met with, I could sense their hesitance. But Alden was ready to commit and get in the mud with me on it, and he did.Some critics have touted “Fair Play” as the return of the erotic thriller. Do you think that’s true?I didn’t set out to make an erotic thriller. I set out to make a thriller about power dynamics within a relationship, and that definitely has some crossovers. But I think our job as new filmmakers is to do something different with genre and manipulate it and twist it to serve our stories.I don’t think it’s enough these days just to make a good movie. You need to make something that pierces people in a way and holds up a mirror and gets them to ask questions that they’re not asking and starts conversation and debate. And this just felt like a subject matter that hasn’t really been explored onscreen, at least in not this way.The audience response at preview screenings has been so interesting — clapping, gasping, even yelling at the characters.People were reacting like it’s a horror movie, and that was very exciting to me. The intention was always to create this balloon of tension that you don’t know when or where it’s going to pop, but once it does, it just becomes this total dogfight.This feels like a dangerous date movie. You may end up facilitating some divorces.Couples that have come to early screenings, you see them start to fight on their way back to the car — like the man will say something, and then his girlfriend will slowly look at him like, “That’s what you thought?” So yeah, I can’t wait to break people up. I’m here for it. More

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      Which Sundance Movies Could Follow ‘CODA’ to the Oscars?

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      Jonathan Majors in “Magazine Dreams” and Teyana Taylor in “A Thousand and One,” among others, could make the journey from Park City to the Dolby Theater.Over the past few decades, the Sundance Film Festival has premiered Oscar winners like “Manchester by the Sea,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “Minari,” but it wasn’t until last March — when the crowd-pleasing “CODA” won best picture — that a Sundance movie went the distance and claimed the top Academy Award.It may be a little while before Sundance pulls off that feat again, as the Oscar nominations announced last week featured no movies from the festival in the best-picture race; indeed, the only 2022 Sundance film to make a dent in the top six Oscar categories was the British drama “Living,” which earned a best-actor nod for Bill Nighy. But could the movies that just premiered at the 2023 edition of the festival, which concluded on Sunday, help recover some of Sundance’s award-season mojo?The program certainly offered a fair amount of best-actor contenders who could follow in Nighy’s footsteps. Foremost among them is Jonathan Majors. The up-and-coming actor already has a crowded 2023: He’ll soon be seen facing off against Michael B. Jordan in “Creed III” and playing the supervillain Kang in Marvel properties like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Loki.” And that slate just got even stronger with the Sundance premiere of “Magazine Dreams,” a troubled-loner drama in which Majors plays an amateur bodybuilder on the brink of snapping. Had the film been released a few months ago, Majors would have made this year’s thin best-actor lineup for sure, but the right studio buyer could take advantage of his newfound Marvel momentum to muscle this formidable performance into the next race.The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Meet the Newer, Bolder Michelle Williams: Why she made the surprising choice to skip the supporting actress category and run for best actress.Best-Actress Battle Royal: A banner crop of leading ladies like Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.‘Glass Onion’ and Rian Johnson: The director explains why he sold the “Knives Out” franchise to Netflix, and how he feels about its theatrical test.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.Other best-actor candidates that could come from the current Sundance crop include Gael Garcia Bernal, who could earn his first nomination for playing a gay luchador in the appealing “Cassandro,” and David Strathairn, who toplines the modest, humane “A Little Prayer,” about a father deciding whether to meddle in his son’s extramarital affair. One point in Strathairn’s favor is that his film will be released by Sony Pictures Classics, which has managed to land a well-liked veteran in the best-actor lineup three of the last four years (Nighy for “Living,” Anthony Hopkins for “The Father” and Antonio Banderas for “Pain and Glory”).The top Sundance jury prize went to A.V. Rockwell’s “A Thousand and One,” which could earn best-actress attention for Teyana Taylor, who plays a defiant ex-con resorting to desperate measures to keep custody of her son. (Still, the film’s planned March release from Focus Features will require some end-of-year reminders for forgetful voters.) Also buzzed about was Greta Lee, who could be in contention for A24’s “Past Lives,” about a Korean American woman reunited with her former lover; the film was so rapturously received that a best-picture push could be in the cards.Will any of the year’s biggest-selling films crash the Oscars race? Netflix spent $20 million to acquire the well-reviewed “Fair Play,” which pits the “Bridgerton” star Phoebe Dynevor against the “Solo: A Star Wars Story” actor Alden Ehrenreich as co-workers whose affair curdles once she gets promoted. It’s not the kind of starry auteur project that usually gets a big end-of-the-year campaign from Netflix, but if this battle of the sexes becomes a zeitgeisty hit, the streamer may give it a shot. Apple TV+ paid $20 million for the musical comedy “Flora and Son,” from the “Once” director John Carney, while Searchlight shelled out more than $7 million for the Ben Platt vehicle “Theater Camp.” At the very least, these two comedies feature delightful original-song contenders.Sundance films could make the biggest splash is in the best-documentary race: All but one of this year’s Oscar-nominated documentaries first debuted at the January festival, and even if you stripped Sundance of its star-driven narrative films, the strength of its docs would still preserve its status as a top-tier world festival.This year, the most-talked-about docs were the award winners “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” about a storied Black poet; the Alzheimer’s drama “The Eternal Memory”; “Beyond Utopia,” which features compelling hidden-camera footage of North Koreans trying to defect; and “20 Days in Mariupol,” about the Russian siege of a Ukrainian port city. More

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      ‘Fair Play’ Review: Casting a Floodlight on Invisible Labor

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      This documentary, a lucid look at household tasks based on Eve Rodsky’s best seller, pairs actionable guidance with testimony from real families.The advice included within Eve Rodsky’s book “Fair Play,” a guide to sharing domestic labor and achieving harmony in the home, won’t blow your mind. A woman’s time is as valuable as a man’s? Who knew! But there is a fortifying effect to arranging these axioms in sequence.The documentary “Fair Play,” directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom (“The Great American Lie”) and based on Rodsky’s book, reproduces its lucidity by positioning interviews with real families alongside Rodsky’s directives. While its stylings, including perky music and cutesy graphics, can sometimes verge on trite, its insights and guidance are encouraging, actionable and necessary.As our talking-head guide, Rodsky is amiable cinematic company. She describes growing up as the latchkey kid of a single mother, and how the strains she faced in her youth informed her values as a wife and mom. An admirable frankness guides her testimony: Rodsky recounts instances of feeling angry at her husband, and describes the specific ways that she coached him in the art of taking ownership over household tasks.The film’s arguments hit harder in the wake of the pandemic’s lockdowns, which the documentary suggests found moms bearing the brunt of the stress. But most vital is the film’s look at where the United States falls short in its support of parents, particularly its limited access to subsidized child care. The burden of invisible labor can be mitigated on a case-by-case basis, but at the end of the day, it is the system that needs to change.Fair PlayNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Amazon, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More