The divisive point in Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is the fate of Carey Mulligan’s Cassie towards the end of the movie, which seems to determine whether you enjoy the movie as a whole. It’s bleak and contrary to the vigilante-pop anthem that the film’s marketing seemingly promised. But even if you didn’t prefer it, you’d have to reluctantly agree that it’s probably the most realistic fate. “I think a lot of people may have been persuaded to change that ending to something that ultimately just wouldn’t have felt real,” Mulligan once said in an interview. It’s a begrudging truth (which is somewhat relieved in a bittersweet ending), but I’ve learned to appreciate it more after seeing a movie that caters to a realism-avoidant audience.

Enter Chloe Domont’s Fair Play, an insulated inversion of power dynamics between hedge fund analysts Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich). The film opens in the midst of their mutual adoration, in which they drink at a wedding reception, get hastily engaged at a bathroom, and wake up next to each other on their apartment floor like young romantics do. Then, in a cunning sequence, they perform their silent morning drill of dressing for work, departing at the door, and then arriving separately at the same company. Fearful of losing their jobs due to company policies, Luke and Emily are in a clandestine relationship and plan on “coming out” when they both climb up the ladder to “fuck you” positions. Terrible idea, which is worsened when Emily is first promoted to project manager, a position that was initially rumored to be Luke’s.

One of life’s cruelties is knowing when someone is making a mistake, but being unable to identify that mistake when you’re in the same position. “I don’t shit where I eat,” Emily says to a co-worker when he notes the way she glances at Luke, as she continues to shit where she eats. It’s the complexity of factors beyond surface understanding — “He doesn’t mean it like that!”— that makes it hard for a person to think rationally, and that’s what we see what happens with Emily when Luke’s mood and demeanor becomes more negatively affected by the promotion. Fair Play does a great job depicting how anyone — financially successful, socially intelligent, emotionally stable — can find themselves in an abusive cycle. It also lends a sympathetic hand to Luke, who falls victim to a sort of alpha-male-in-trouble mentality that places their relationship on ice. There are plot tension points where, in the usual man-versus-woman scenario, the woman would usually fail because, you know, patriarchy. Instead, it feels great and unexpected when Emily succeeds in her new role, no strings attached except for Luke, lurking behind a computer screen.

Her victories are additionally befuddled by Luke’s incapacities; when he finds out that there is another open spot for project manager, he humiliates himself by begging for the position in front of the whole department the whole office. Early in the movie, Emily finds out that Luke was hired through a recommendation, has lost the company a few mil, and is probably one of the closest names on the chopping block (while there are a lot of bad things that can make you see your significant other in a different light, I can’t help but feel like my stomach would drop if I knew that my partner was a terrible employee). It’s a secret that I wish we didn’t know about; if this was supposed to be a movie of equal minds battling each other, then I could imagine hearing a pin drop if Emily decides to drop this information without knowing for sure if it was true. Instead, the film focuses more on man’s reaction to inadequacy. Individually, Luke’s flaw is believing that he is meant to earn what he deserves and not necessarily that he is a Man™ ready to rip women apart (though there are some scenes where it’s hard not to see him that way). In those instances where Luke would have had the upper hand (because, you know, patriarchy), Domont instead choosing to show Luke struggling not to make the worse choice gives him a nuanced perspective.

But a kinder perspective? That’s debatable. Luke’s emotional descent culminates in last-straw territory, which sorta diminishes the gray areas that Domont was hoping for and places him into categorical evil by the end (I also feel like its marketing as an “erotic thriller” is misleading, as it leans more toward “This film talks about oral sex” rather than the duplicitous use of sexual dominance in an alluring and fairly consensual way). Fair Play doesn’t do much in bringing their situation to universal situations from Luke’s side, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun in cheering for Emily or booing Luke. It’s also easier to watch if you adjust to a plot-armored-Jennifer-Lopez-in-an-early-’00s-thriller lens. Ehrenreich coyly plays up to a white-collar schmuck in love but makes it believable when he slowly succumbs to a meninst-coded ideology. Dynevor also plays well to Emily’s faith to herself and for this relationship, where her attempts at being successful at her job and making Luke feel adequate are realistically at odds. In the beginning, we might think that Emily is not as into the relationship as Luke is, but when he begins to snarl insults at her appearance and competence, Emily’s surprised and hurt reactions are perfect reminders that abusers can chip away at a person and their notion of love, little by little and without warning.

Abuse comes in different sizes, shapes, and mentalities, so it’s not to say that what Emily experiences here is only specific to stressed-out financial analysts. The film helps reveal the insidious induction of abuse, where it doesn’t happen overnight or revealed by physical evidence. Fair Play is a promising, young debut that could have done well if it had picked a specific lane on the generalization of men gone wrong, but there’s always welcome space for an ending where women make it out alive.

Fair Play
2023
dir. Chloe Domont
113 min.

Now streaming on Netflix