Everyone is so wrong about Netflix’s ‘erotic thriller’ Fair Play

Usually, when a movie is widely filmed, the studio deliberately distorts it in marketing material to broaden its appeal or simply doesn’t know how to make its nature obvious. But in case Equality — a tense, needy relationship drama currently streaming on Netflix — marketers are off the hook. The Unjust story began to build around Chloe Domont’s debut feature when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, before Netflix even acquired it. Some critics have convinced him Equality represented the genre of the romantic dance thriller. There is no such thing as pretending to hurt himself.

Equality follows two young financial analysts at a small but wildly successful Wall Street hedge fund. Emily (Phoebe Dynevor from BridgertonLuke Solo: A Star Wars Story infamy) fall madly in love, share an apartment, and are engaged in the opening minutes of the film. But the trains take each other to work, where they pretend to ignore each other so that they don’t come up with nefarious plans. They wait for Luke to be promoted, but when Emily is chosen instead, their discomfort begins to congeal into anger, and then worse.

Be fair to critics saying Equality is a romantic thriller, has some echoes of the subgenre’s languid 1980s and ’90s heyday. In movies like An indecent proposition and Disclosure – and probably others as well not “ star Demi Moore — this kind of battle-of-the-sexes was common in the production of the work, finally with aspiration, intrusion, yuppie milieu and the obligatory twist of deception. Equality Two big, press-free sex scenes, too, which is so unusual to see in a movie now that it was common back then. But the similarities end there. There, when Six

Photo: Netflix

Equality It has sex in it, but the movie isn’t a little cheesy, according to Domont. But it’s intimate – first in an exciting and romantic way, then in a claustrophobic and disturbing way. He sticks closely to his two leads, keeping them close together or exploring across the office using a zoom lens. And it remains in the heads throughout, especially Aemilia.

But the sexual attraction between them is not at all the subject of the film. This is their relationship, clearly from the beginning. For most of the film’s running time, though, the attraction rarely comes in its complex, developing power dynamic. Unless you count Luke’s sad refusal to catch up. At one point, Emily tries to bring sex back on the table with a proposal of a bad joke, which Luke turns around and then throws back in his face, in a poignant reversal of the post-#MeToo genre of politics.

Sex finally enters their relationship, in the worst possible way. But sex is not a motive for either: they are driven by self-image, success, money. Thriller erotic (good, certainly, like Basic Instinct) are often also about these things, but these elements are taken and expressed through sexual and/or sexual zeal, which should be the driving force of the characters. (And somehow you also want to impress the viewers – these usually know how to tickle movies, while Equality it is very).

Photo: Sergej Radovic/Netflix

A heated, sexy atmosphere is essential for an erotic thriller, along with a sense that sex is the only thing the characters can think about. That’s how a movie like last year’s trashy Patricia Highsmith adaptation? Gurglingfrom Adrian Lyne’s barbarian romance-thriller, it could have been much more six-fold and much more traditional than it was Equality, even though Gurgling minus the actual gender features.

There is nothing that even the sharpest critics will misunderstand Equality. After the worst types of commercial cinema, the moment of protest and re-evaluation is exciting, thanks to influential critical voices such as Wesley Morris and Karina Longworth including the nettle as if in the series. attractive, funnyand cornea podcasts It’s a game bandwagon, and it’s natural to want to jump on it – especially in the context of the recent sex-free movie experience. (Although it began to change, even from where EqualitySundance debut: Films like Ira Sachs’ hypnotic Places and, as they say, Yorgos Lanthimos Poor things once again they push the boundaries of screen sex, with Christopher Nolan of all people also in the act.

EqualityIt’s just a shame if it obscures what Domont was doing with the movie. The film is sharp, ambiguous, trenchant, with great performances from Dynevor and Ehrenreich, and a menace from Eddie Marsan as the boss. Ehrenreich, in particular, is a pathetically intrepid role that requires him to reverse his trajectory in the toilet until someone makes the grave mistake of casting him as a young version of Harrison Ford.

And while Equality It’s not horrible, it’s a joy to watch, especially in the flying, horrible last half hour that feels like it could go anywhere. In this film, the air of a greedy, transactional world, the toxic dynamics around gender and power rules. Sex does not stand by chance.

Equality It’s now on Netflix.