It Looks Like All's Fair In Love and Work In Netflix's Steamy Thriller 'Fair Play'
Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich in "Fair Play"
(Photo: Netflix)
Love --- and the corporate boardroom --- is a battlefield. Such is the premise at the heart of the buzzy Netflix thriller Fair Play, a dark exploration of romance and corporate gender politics that also seems to make a pretty compelling argument that you should probably never date your coworkers.
The film stars Bridgerton alum Phoebe Dynevor alongside Alden Ehrenreich (Oppenheimer) as a pair of lovers who work together as analysts at a cutthroat financial firm. Emily and Luke's romantic relationship is a secret because it's forbidden by their employer, so they have to keep their recent engagement under wraps from their colleagues. At least until one of them gets an unexpected promotion and the fallout threatens to tear apart more than their relationship.
As the power dynamics between the two shift, the couple must face questions of ambition and greed, as well as the uncomfortable misogyny that still runs rampant in the upper echelons of corporate America. (There's a line in the trailer where Luke basically tells his girlfriend no one will respect her if she dresses like a "cupcake", and reader, I gasped. It is 2023!!)
Fair Play harkens back to the erotic thriller days of the 1980s and 90s and represents something of a departure for the series stars, who are best known for playing a popular Regency heroine and a young Han Solo rather than a set of sexy corporate backstabbers, but that's kind of what makes it fun.
Here's the film's logline.
An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement.
Eddie Marsan (The Thief, His Wife, and the Canoe), Rich Sommer (Minx), and Sebastian De Souza (The Great) also star. The film is written and directed by Chloe Domont's who is making her feature debut after helming episodes of both Billions and Ballers, which explore similar themes of excess, corruption, and greed.
Fair Play is produced by Leopold Hughes and Ben LeClair for T-Street, along with Tim White, Trevor White and Allan Mandelbaum for Star Thrower. Ram Bergman, Rian Johnsonk, Anđelka Vlaisavljević, and Domant are executive producers. The film is produced in partnership with MRC.
Fair Play screened to rave reviews at this year's Sundance and Toronto International Film Festivals, and will receive a limited theatrical release beginning Friday September 29, before premiering globally on Netflix just a week later on Friday, October 6.
