Sundance movie pageant goes wild for attractive company thriller ‘Fair Play’
8 min readBy Associated Press
PARK CITY (Utah, US): The hearth emoji was a standard sight in tweets concerning the new company thriller “Fair Play,” which debuted Friday on the Sundance Film Festival.
The film follows two formidable analysts at a cutthroat hedge fund, performed by “Bridgerton’s” Phoebe Dynevor and “Solo’s” Alden Ehrenreich, who’re additionally in a passionate and secret relationship. Several steamy scenes had some declaring the return of the erotic thriller.
Film historian Karina Longworth, whose podcast “You Must Remember This” lately delved into the erotic thriller second of the Eighties, tweeted that “It does for the 2020s what ‘Fatal Attraction’ did for the late 80s.”
Chloe Domont, who wrote and directed the movie, mentioned she didn’t got down to make an erotic thriller, per se.
But “I did set out to make a thriller about gender power dynamics within a relationship that happens to be highly sexual,” Domont instructed The Associated Press on Saturday in Park City. “I think the execution of that intention ended up flipping the erotic thriller genre on its head.”
Dynevor, in solely her second movie position, mentioned that when she learn Domont’s script, she noticed herself and a variety of ladies she is aware of in her character, Emily, who appears to be the only real feminine on the firm. She’s made much more conscious of this when she will get promoted over Ehrenreich’s Luke.
“How she navigates work life in a very male-dominated industry and how she navigates her relationship and, you know, in many ways has to make herself smaller in order to make other people feel comfortable, I could relate to that,” Dynevor mentioned.
Ehrenreich’s character comes from a extra privileged background than Emily’s. He’s Ivy League-educated and expects a certain quantity of success. But he additionally rolls his eyes on the informal misogyny of his co-workers and, a minimum of at first, is supportive of Emily’s ascent.
“I think he’s a little removed from the rest of the office. He’s not quite in that boy’s club,” Ehrenreich mentioned.
“One of the things that I really liked about the movie that I think sometimes is lacking from stories that take on issues like this is understanding the background and the system and the culture that all of that is taking place in,” he continued. “It’s not on one individual being a good person or a bad person. We’re all highly influenced by our environment and the ambitions that we have within that environment.”
ALSO READ | Ukraine administrators deliver horrors of Russian invasion to Sundance movie pageant
The movie has already stirred up a gender debate amongst those that have seen it as Domont makes positive to by no means go the cliche route together with her characters. Audience sympathies might even shift between Luke and Emily from scene to scene. Dynevor was firmly on Emily’s aspect in studying the script and through filming, however when she watched the completed product, one thing modified.
“I kind of saw it more as him and her being a culprit of the society and a victim of the society, as opposed to, like anyone was a baddie or a goodie,” she mentioned.
“Fair Play,” which is up for acquisition on the pageant, is Domont’s directorial debut on the massive display screen. But high-finance drama is just not new for her: She’s helmed episodes of Showtime’s “Billions” too.
“My interest in that world starts from, you know, ‘Wall Street’ and ‘Working Girl’ and like those movies,” Domont mentioned. “But for me it’s the stakes. You have high stakes, you have drama.”
“You make money one day, you lose money the next day. … You’re either living on a high and you think you’re the (expletive), or the next day you think you’re a worthless piece of (expletive),” Domont added. “What that does to a person, the fluctuating between those highs and lows, I relate to that in the film industry. … I related to what that environment does to a person.”
Serbia performs New York within the movie, which got here collectively somewhat rapidly, however the three key gamers made positive to carve out time to determine an genuine intimacy between Ehrenreich and Dynevor.
“We did a few days of rehearsal that I thought were really valuable, and it’s so rare you get to do that,” Ehrenreich mentioned. “It makes such a huge, huge difference, especially in a movie like this, if two people have been together and so much of the movie is their relationship and the details of that.”
That concerned improvisations of Emily’s first day on the workplace and the primary time Luke tells her he loves her.
“It really felt like it really kind of locked something in,” Ehrenreich mentioned. “That’s a magical thing that is worth fighting for on almost every movie, especially any movie that deals with, you know, a relationship of any kind.”
They additionally labored with an intimacy coordinator to stage the intercourse scenes.
“Chloe is such a phenomenal director and was always pushing us to go farther and farther, which was such a thrill as an actor,” Dynevor mentioned. “And we both felt really safe to do so.”
The Sundance Film Festival runs by means of Jan. 29.
PARK CITY (Utah, US): The hearth emoji was a standard sight in tweets concerning the new company thriller “Fair Play,” which debuted Friday on the Sundance Film Festival.
The film follows two formidable analysts at a cutthroat hedge fund, performed by “Bridgerton’s” Phoebe Dynevor and “Solo’s” Alden Ehrenreich, who’re additionally in a passionate and secret relationship. Several steamy scenes had some declaring the return of the erotic thriller.
Film historian Karina Longworth, whose podcast “You Must Remember This” lately delved into the erotic thriller second of the Eighties, tweeted that “It does for the 2020s what ‘Fatal Attraction’ did for the late 80s.”
Chloe Domont, who wrote and directed the movie, mentioned she didn’t got down to make an erotic thriller, per se.
But “I did set out to make a thriller about gender power dynamics within a relationship that happens to be highly sexual,” Domont instructed The Associated Press on Saturday in Park City. “I think the execution of that intention ended up flipping the erotic thriller genre on its head.”
Dynevor, in solely her second movie position, mentioned that when she learn Domont’s script, she noticed herself and a variety of ladies she is aware of in her character, Emily, who appears to be the only real feminine on the firm. She’s made much more conscious of this when she will get promoted over Ehrenreich’s Luke.
“How she navigates work life in a very male-dominated industry and how she navigates her relationship and, you know, in many ways has to make herself smaller in order to make other people feel comfortable, I could relate to that,” Dynevor mentioned.
Ehrenreich’s character comes from a extra privileged background than Emily’s. He’s Ivy League-educated and expects a certain quantity of success. But he additionally rolls his eyes on the informal misogyny of his co-workers and, a minimum of at first, is supportive of Emily’s ascent.
“I think he’s a little removed from the rest of the office. He’s not quite in that boy’s club,” Ehrenreich mentioned.
“One of the things that I really liked about the movie that I think sometimes is lacking from stories that take on issues like this is understanding the background and the system and the culture that all of that is taking place in,” he continued. “It’s not on one individual being a good person or a bad person. We’re all highly influenced by our environment and the ambitions that we have within that environment.”
ALSO READ | Ukraine administrators deliver horrors of Russian invasion to Sundance movie pageant
The movie has already stirred up a gender debate amongst those that have seen it as Domont makes positive to by no means go the cliche route together with her characters. Audience sympathies might even shift between Luke and Emily from scene to scene. Dynevor was firmly on Emily’s aspect in studying the script and through filming, however when she watched the completed product, one thing modified.
“I kind of saw it more as him and her being a culprit of the society and a victim of the society, as opposed to, like anyone was a baddie or a goodie,” she mentioned.
“Fair Play,” which is up for acquisition on the pageant, is Domont’s directorial debut on the massive display screen. But high-finance drama is just not new for her: She’s helmed episodes of Showtime’s “Billions” too.
“My interest in that world starts from, you know, ‘Wall Street’ and ‘Working Girl’ and like those movies,” Domont mentioned. “But for me it’s the stakes. You have high stakes, you have drama.”
“You make money one day, you lose money the next day. … You’re either living on a high and you think you’re the (expletive), or the next day you think you’re a worthless piece of (expletive),” Domont added. “What that does to a person, the fluctuating between those highs and lows, I relate to that in the film industry. … I related to what that environment does to a person.”
Serbia performs New York within the movie, which got here collectively somewhat rapidly, however the three key gamers made positive to carve out time to determine an genuine intimacy between Ehrenreich and Dynevor.
“We did a few days of rehearsal that I thought were really valuable, and it’s so rare you get to do that,” Ehrenreich mentioned. “It makes such a huge, huge difference, especially in a movie like this, if two people have been together and so much of the movie is their relationship and the details of that.”
That concerned improvisations of Emily’s first day on the workplace and the primary time Luke tells her he loves her.
“It really felt like it really kind of locked something in,” Ehrenreich mentioned. “That’s a magical thing that is worth fighting for on almost every movie, especially any movie that deals with, you know, a relationship of any kind.”
They additionally labored with an intimacy coordinator to stage the intercourse scenes.
“Chloe is such a phenomenal director and was always pushing us to go farther and farther, which was such a thrill as an actor,” Dynevor mentioned. “And we both felt really safe to do so.”
The Sundance Film Festival runs by means of Jan. 29.
