Fair Play
Fair Play／フェアプレー
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
An engaged couple at a hedge fund; she gets the promotion he wanted and the sex stops being the safe place.
Emily Meyers and Luke Edmunds are analysts at One Crest Capital, a ruthless Manhattan hedge fund where colleagues are forbidden to date, and they are secretly in love. At his brother's wedding he proposes and, after a moment's hesitation, she says yes. When a portfolio manager is fired, Emily hears that Luke is in line for the post, and they celebrate. Then the fund's chief executive, Campbell, calls her to a late-night meeting and gives the job to her. Luke says he is glad for her.
He is not. As she rises, he spends 3,000 dollars on a course in self-assertion at work, suggests she could use one, and turns away from her in bed. Campbell tells Emily he considers Luke ineffectual. When she backs a trade Luke recommends, it loses the fund 15 million dollars and Campbell turns on her; when she trusts her own judgement instead, it pays, and she is handed a 575,000-dollar bonus. She comes home drunk from a strip club with her male colleagues; Luke, having seen the cheque, begins to ask whether she slept her way up. He makes a grovelling speech to Campbell, only to learn that the next manager's post has already been filled. Drunk, he bursts into Emily's pitch to overseas investors, abuses Campbell and reveals their relationship.
At the engagement party her mother has planned, Luke suggests in front of both families that she traded sex for her job, and Emily breaks a bottle over his head. He follows her into the bathroom, their argument turns physical, and he rapes her, ignoring her when she tells him to stop. The next morning, to keep her job, she tells Campbell that Luke had become fixated on her and that there was never a relationship; Campbell tells her to keep her private life out of the office. At home Luke is packing, calm, talking of starting his own firm, and says they both got carried away. Emily picks up a knife and cuts him until he weeps and asks, sincerely, for her forgiveness. Then she tells him to clean up the blood and leave.
Starring
Phoebe Dynevoras Emily Meyers
An analyst at a Manhattan hedge fund, secretly engaged to a colleague, who wins the promotion he expected.
Emily Meyers’s story
Emily and Luke hide their love at a fund that forbids it, and celebrate when she hears he is in line for promotion; then Campbell gives the job to her. When she backs Luke's call on a trade and the fund loses 15 million dollars, Campbell turns on her; trusting her own judgement, she earns a 575,000-dollar bonus. Luke turns cold, then asks whether she slept her way up. After he wrecks her investor pitch and humiliates her at their engagement party, she breaks a bottle over his head, and in the bathroom he rapes her. Next morning, to keep her job, she denies the relationship to Campbell. When Luke calls it getting carried away, she cuts him with a knife until he weeps and sincerely asks her forgiveness, then tells him to clean up the blood and go.
Alden Ehrenreichas Luke Edmunds
Emily's fiancé and fellow analyst, whose resentment hardens as she rises above him.
Luke Edmunds’s story
Luke proposes to Emily at his brother's wedding, and when Campbell gives her the promotion he expected, he says he is glad for her. Then the resentment shows. He pays 3,000 dollars for a course in self-assertion, suggests she needs one, turns away from her in bed and asks whether she slept her way up. His trade loses the fund 15 million dollars, and his speech of loyalty to Campbell ends with the news that the post is filled. Drunk, he wrecks Emily's pitch to investors and reveals their relationship. At the engagement party he implies that she traded sex for her job, and in the bathroom he rapes her. Next day he is packing, calm, and says they both got carried away. When she cuts him, he weeps, asks sincerely for her forgiveness, and is sent out.
Eddie Marsanas Campbell
The fund's chief executive, who promotes Emily and has already written Luke off.
Why it matters
Fair Play asks what happens to a relationship when the woman is promoted over the man, and does not pretend the answer is pretty. Luke's support curdles into sulking, sabotage, humiliation and finally rape, and the film follows the line from wounded pride to sexual violence without softening a step of it. It is as sharp about the workplace around them: a fund where the men's night out is a strip club, where Emily must deny her own relationship to keep her job, and where Campbell tells her that blame and accountability are beside the point. It was Chloe Domont's first feature, and after its Sundance premiere Netflix won a bidding war for it at 20 million dollars. The question it leaves is the one Emily faces with the knife in her hand: whether a man can bear to be loved by a woman who has more power than he does.