Deeply unsettling, Chloe Domont’s feature directorial debut, Fair Play, brings out workplace disparity through grotesque imagery

Mona

There is the world we aspire for and then there is a world we reside in. Writer-director Chloe Domont brings the rude jolt of difference between aspirations and reality in her 113-minutes film Fair Play.

Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) work for One Crest Capital, a hugely competitive financial firm in Manhattan. Both analysts, they are yet to reveal their two-year relationship to the HR. Notably, it is now the standard norm around the world to keep the HR department in the know. In a night of wild lovemaking at a family wedding, drunk Luke proposes to Emily.

Barely is the couple able to celebrate their engagement that there is opening for a higher position at their firm. The duo celebrates the double win, thinking its Luke who is getting the position, but it turns out that Emily gets promoted. Things take a downturn from there. Their love life goes for a toss, professional jealousy takes over and the much-in-love couple is at loggerheads.

If the rawness of sex scenes is something to deal with, even more shocking is the vulgarity of ‘unfair’ play at work. In 2023, you want to believe that comments like ‘a woman is f****** her way to the top’ is a passé. But that sure exists and the film duly makes a vulgar show of it.

Emily’s new position has her socialising with her new peers. Luke rudely points out that a night of drunken debauchery doesn’t put her in their clout, but makes her look like their paid ‘escort’. Hard to stomach the crassness of this and more, how the duo deals with the stress and strain of the new developments holds more shocking details.

Fair Play at times turns into this exaggerated Bollywood drama, especially the scenes of Luke kneeling down in front of Campbell begging him for a higher position; the melodrama at the night of Luke-Emily’s engagement party and the bloody climax.

A stellar act by Phoebe Dynevor, a woman of today who knows her worth and is ready to fight for her fair share under the sun, and Alden Ehrenreich, as a defeated, jilted lover drive home the ‘unfairness’ of the personal-professional spheres. Eddie Marsan as Campbel, Sebastian de Souza as Rory and Sia Alipour as Arjun lend authenticity to workplace environment.

Also, the symbolism strikes home — the workspace is all glass cubicles but is the work place transparent? There are many HR videos played on dealing with conflict, but is it really helping? One can’t but notice the gas-lighting Luke subjects Emily to.

While pointing to disparity, it also throws open questions like – is woman striking a man with beer bottle ‘unfair’ or he injuring her in ‘supposed’ make up sex ‘fair’? The film almost romanticises the drunken sexual violence.

Deeply unsettling, Netflix’ recent outing Fair Play, absolutely an adult watch, raises valid pointers for the society to accept, take note of and work towards resolution. Kudos to Chloe Domont for writing and directing this brave outing, which marks her feature directorial debut.