Spoiler warning!
“Fair Play”, Netflix’s latest finance thriller directed by Chloe Dumont, illustrates how it feels to be a woman in business. Dumont’s film follows two financial analysts, Emily and Luke, who enter a clandestine relationship despite it being against company policy at the firm where they both work. When a portfolio manager position is unexpectedly up for grabs, rumours fly about Luke being next in line for the big promotion. However, when it’s revealed Emily will be promoted over Luke, she becomes his boss, and we watch as Luke becomes increasingly erratic while spiralling into a narrative justified by his own narcissism. This film oozes tension, sex and workplace politics, all while reaffirming the experience commonplace to many women.
It’s not hard to see that Luke was living in a false reality, one where he believed he was entitled to success, while others had to earn it. This mindset reflects an image of privilege and egoism—which often ends up looking down upon other groups (especially women).
In retrospect, it’s likely that not only was Luke attempting to gaslight Emily, but I would argue that he was gaslighting himself. Right after Emily’s promotion, he comes across an advertisement for a business leadership package, including a book and speaker’s conference from a motivation speaker. The message preached was a rhetoric that we see repeated several times over the course of Luke’s downward spiral. It’s the idea that we can make other people believe our narratives by making it so that they cannot live without them. In other words, it claims that there is always a way to change other people’s minds, and that very belief led Luke to quite literally beg for his boss’s approval in front of the entire office. When his boss overlooks him for a second time when another promotion arises, Luke is in turmoil.
One scene that struck a chord with me was when Emily and her fellow PMs went out to a strip club for drinks after Emily’s big win at work that day. She is the firm’s only woman PM and seated around a table with her new coworkers—men she once looked to for praise—while they engage in “locker room” talk, making crude comments and vile sexual innuendos about college girls. Clearly uncomfortable and feeling like an outsider, Emily eventually decides she’s tired of sitting on the sidelines and desires to prove herself to be “one of the boys”. Except, unfortunately and as Luke viscously points out during an argument that takes place back at their apartment later that night, those men will never view her as their equal. Luke goes as far as reducing her to being of equal value to one of the prostitutes at the club.
Men’s disposition of women’s power is indisputable and ever-present in modern feminist society. We constantly see social media scrutinizing female celebrities who have achieved unprecedented levels of success, like Taylor Swift. Rather than praising her triumphs, we search for reasons to discredit her talent or undermine her hard work. Swift herself once said that you never hear anyone say that they don’t like a male singer because “there’s just something about him…”, claiming that that criticism is reserved for female singers alone.
Sexism pervades every industry, some undoubtedly more than others, but men’s discomforting relationship with inferiority is an ever-present patriarchal issue that persists. We see it in the media just as we do with Luke, whose behaviour is motivated by his intimidation of Emily’s success. Equality, including gender equality in the workplace, has never been fought on the basis that women should hold power over men, rather that positions of power should not be influenced by gender stereotypes. Whether or not you recognize the patriarchal impact on workplace hierarchy, “Fair Play” speaks to how masculinity has been traditionally rooted in the exertion of power.
Near the end of the film, after the couple has an explosive fight publicly at their engagement party, it becomes evident to Emily that any possibility of salvaging the relationship has passed. Luke, having exposed their relationship to the firm and causing a very public scene before getting fired, puts Emily in a liable position. In a follow-up meeting about the situation with her boss, he simply tells her, “Blame, accountability, it’s all irrelevant.” Although he may not feel that blame and accountability are relevant in the court of public opinion, Emily decides she feels otherwise and wants Luke to take accountability for his actions.
When she finds him sitting crossed-legged in their apartment that evening, bags in tow, she sports a stunned look as he spurs ramblings about a new lead on a job in San Francisco and an early morning flight. The look on Emily’s face was captivating, and we empathized with her while anxiously awaiting how she would react. In one swift shift, she decides that she will no longer play into his false reality or be a victim of his gaslighting, and demands he admit the pain he caused her. Things get intense during the heated exchange and at one point Emily picks up a knife, telling Luke that she wants him to cry, because if she can’t make him cry she will make him bleed. I interpreted this more as a metaphor for justice: she wanted him to break like he had broken her.
From afar, “Fair Play” appears to be concerned with feminine rage, when at its core, is about masculine fragility. It manages to capture the unique power-play dynamics that underlie the workplace. This uncomfortable divide is apparent in each action that drives both characters throughout the movie. At the end of the day, neither Luke nor Emily were the perfect victims or villains. They both existed in the grey area, just as real people tend to.
This introspective film brilliantly pulls viewers along for an agonizing two hours of fist-clenching anticipation. Dumont did a stellar job capturing the simmering tension lurking behind every exchange in this illicit affair. A storyline following two people whose ambition drives them to extreme ends forces viewers to consider the inner workings of the power play at hand both professionally and within personal relationships. Most prominently, the film questions what it means to exist in a world both tainted by patriarchal values and shifting towards a modern, feminist society.
It’s a film that began and ended in blood.