Inside “Fair Play”'s intense fallout from a financial deal gone wrong — and that cutting insult
All is fair in love and finance...or is it?
In Fair Play, a Sundance darling written and directed by Chloe Domont, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) are co-workers in a secret relationship that strains when Emily wins a coveted promotion, a career move which activates Luke's insecurities. When the toxicity of their workplace spills over into their romance, lines are crossed and their relationship is pushed to the brink.
"This isn't really a film about female empowerment," Domont, who's making her feature directorial debut here, tells EW. "This is a film about male fragility."
Domont, who has directed several episodes of the Showtime series Billions, has always been drawn to high-stakes storytelling set in the world of finance, but Fair Play allowed her to interrogate what happens when you take your work home with you.
"I was trying to show how a toxic work environment can feed into the toxicity of relationship and vice versa," she explains. "It becomes this vicious cycle in this toxic bubble that you can't really escape." Having worked as a director in Hollywood for the last decade, it's an unfortunate reality Domont can relate to.
Courtesy of Netflix Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich in 'Fair Play'
"There were a lot of parallels of those worlds to my experience in film and TV," she says. "Even though I didn't know anything about the finance world, I felt like I could emotionally tap into what it's like to be under that kind of stress and pressure. I could organically tap into what the high highs and low lows do to a person and what that could do to a relationship that's already imploding."
Domont wanted to tell a story that conveys the challenges women face trying to climb the ladder in an industry that has long been a boys' club, particularly when said climbing threatens the ego of your partner and other men around you. "A woman trying to make her way up in any industry faces those challenges," she states. "Every industry, for the most part, is still a man's industry. I've definitely faced challenges trying to rise up in that respect and can relate, but I feel like every woman can. I wanted to show all the ways in which women are forced to play ugly to survive in that world with those kinds of men."
For Dynevor's Emily, that includes being able to both dole out and receive verbal abuse. In the following scene, which marks a turning point between Emily and Luke, Emily chews out Luke for pushing a deal that ends up costing their firm $25 million. But when she turns to her boss Campbell (Eddie Marsan) with promises to make it up, he perpetuates the cycle of abuse by verbally eviscerating her. Domont breaks down the crucial showdown.
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1. WTF?
Both keeping up appearances as Luke's boss and genuinely distraught at their losses, Emily tears into him — but her frustration stretches further back than his insistence they take this financial gamble.
"A few scenes before that, when he calls her a cupcake, that's really the midpoint of the film and the no-turning-back point," Domont explains of the moment, which you can see above. "Luke starts to use his insecurity as a weapon against Emily. Now, she's getting in her own head because she's been slighted by her male partner in this very passive-aggressive way. She goes into this day already uneasy, on edge, and insecure, and then it becomes this snowball effect where everything goes wrong that day."
"She agrees to go along with him for this move," the writer-director continues. "Under other circumstances, she would've fought against it or she would've had him do the analysis before they decided to go long on it. But instead, she goes with him on it because of what happened the night before. Then because of that, they lose big."
2. Crunch the numbers
Emily struggles to place the blame on Luke for failing to run proper analysis before insisting they make the move, but Domont wanted audiences to feel both her anger at him and her own sense of dread at going along with it.
At the heart of this argument is Emily and Luke's extremely varied approaches to trading. "He's a trader that moves off of momentum and he's someone that's looking to see where the trends are already going," explains Domont. "She's looking where other people aren't looking."
"She's much more of an analytical trader, which is why when Luke comes to her with this forceful proposition in terms of the momentum thing, she's hesitant to it," Domont continues. "She's like, 'No, we have to wait. We have to see where the numbers go.' But she doesn't go with her gut instincts because she's been cut down by him. She is out of alignment; she would've continued to go with her gut instincts had it not been for this man cutting her down."
3. Owning it
Though Emily chews out Luke for pushing her into the deal, Emily also realizes that she has to take responsibility for the loss with her bosses. "More than anything, she's angry with herself at that point because ultimately it's on her," explains Domont. "She's the one that decided to go ahead with it. He had to convince her to do it because she's his superior. Of course, she's upset with him because he brought her this bad bet, but it was on her to decide whether or not to. She's more mad at herself because she knew deep down that there was still work to be done before making this play. Yes, she does call him out on his f--- up, but it's really about her having to scramble for his mess."
4. He said what?
Instead of offering Emily support or understanding, Campbell immediately calls her "dumb f---ing bitch." It's a shocking moment for both the audience and for Emily — one that plays as a sudden cut of a knife.
"She's incredibly shocked by it," says Domont. "She thought this was a man who was here to champion her. Yes, she f---ed up, but did she deserve to be called that? She's taken aback by the sudden outburst of misogyny, even though she's not surprised by it."
"Campbell hires her because he thinks she's a killer," Domont continues. "He gives her this job opportunity because he sees her value regardless of gender. At the same time, as soon as she slips up, then he only sees her failure because of her gender. That's where the comment 'dumb f---ing bitch' comes from. I wanted to show that duality and how that still exists today. There's these male champions out there that will support you and give you the opportunity, but at the same time, you slip up, and suddenly, the misogyny is still there."
5. Did I stutter?
Perhaps the harshest part of Campbell's verbal abuse is not merely that he says it, but that he has no qualms repeating it to be sure it really hits home. That was key to the scene in Domont's eyes.
"I wanted to show how 'Me Too' never hit the finance world," the director says. "These guys can still pretty much carry on with their behavior and they won't be touched by it. That's why he says it again. She looks at him shocked by it, and he says it again. He doesn't apologize. I wanted to double down with, 'I can say whatever the f--- I want. You don't like it, then f--- off."
Fair Play is streaming now on Netflix.
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