In the beginning, Emily and Luke are golden. They’re ambitious and imminently wealthy young professionals, dressed in the sleek monochromes of quiet luxury. They’re so in love that they can’t even make it through a wedding without pawing at each other. When a bathroom tryst gets derailed by her period blood, it’s a silly prelude to their rushed engagement, a mess of passion and, in the new Netflix thriller Fair Play, an omen of pain ahead.
The caustic debut film by the writer/director Chloe Domont sets up a model relationship in a rarefied and ruthless space. Emily (Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke’s (Alden Ehrenreich) love has all the hallmarks of something incipient and promising – they share an apartment, a bed, a lifestyle. But by dating each other, they are breaking company policy at the cutthroat Manhattan hedge fund where they both work. Their attraction thrives on secrecy – they barely acknowledge each other at the office, then have sex on the floor at home – as much as the other’s perceived shrewdness at navigating the type of workplace where boilerplate HR trainings occur in view of an employee beating a monitor with a golf club.
