New Netflix Thriller Is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes
Fair Play debuted on Netflix on Friday.
Netflix's newest film is a hit with critics. At the time of this writing, the recently-released erotic thriller Fair Play is officially Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The film holds an 87% positive rating on the movie review aggregate website, out of a total of 180 reviews. Fair Play is led by Solo: A Star Wars Story's Alden Ehrenreich and Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynevor, and follows their characters as their workplace romance intersects with their jealousy over a new promotion.
"With assured style that's at times reminiscent of the best '90s nail-biting thrillers, Fair Play juxtaposes premarital disharmony with greed and gender politics in the cutthroat finance world," Rotten Tomatoes' Critics Consensus for the film reads.
What Is Fair Play About?
In Fair Play, when a coveted promotion at a cutthroat financial firm arises, once supportive exchanges between lovers Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) begin to sour into something more sinister. As the power dynamics irrevocably shift in their relationship, the couple must face the true price of success and the unnerving limits of ambition. In her feature debut, writer-director Chloe Domont weaves a taut relationship thriller, staring down the destructive gender dynamics that pit partners against each other in a world that is transforming faster than the rules can keep up. Also starring Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer, and Sebastian De Souza, Fair Play unravels the uncomfortable collision of empowerment and ego.
"Luke represents a certain generation of men caught between wanting to adhere to [the principles of] a modern, feminist society [and] still having been raised on traditional ideas of masculinity," Domont explained in a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar. "To me, that intersection is where the conflict lies between men and women today. I was even saying to Alden and Phoebe on set: If Luke had continued to succeed and been just one step above Emily, they would've had a great relationship, because a man's success for the relationship is always [considered] a win. But when it's the other way around, it's suddenly a threat. Even if there's support from a male partner, there's still this feeling in a lot of relationships that a woman being big makes a man feel small, or a woman's accomplishment can feel like a poor reflection of a man's self-worth.
This is a man who, unfortunately, when things do shift, doesn't know how to deal with it, so he pushes it down. And when he pushes it down, it starts to fester into a poison and comes out in really dark ways. What I really wanted to show in the script and through Alden's performance is the struggle—and there's pain there. He genuinely wants to support her, but he's wired a certain way and trying to fight against it, [and] at a certain point he can't.
What do you think of Fair Play being Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Fair Play is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix.