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Without a doubt, all is not fair in love, war or “Fair Play,” the sparkling feature debut from writer-director Chloe Domont that became a sensation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. (It was sold there to Netflix for $20 million and is now streaming on the platform).
Phoebe Dynevor (“Bridgerton”) and Alden Ehrenreich (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”) play Emily and Luke, young and ambitious junior analysts at the same Manhattan hedge fund. Their seemingly happy relationship changes when she gets a big promotion and he doesn’t; A tense psychosexual confrontation ensues. Domont, 36, a Southern California native, sat down for an interview in New York to talk male fragility, the state of erotic thrillers and making “one hell of a date movie.” Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.
You had primarily directed premium cable shows like “Billions” for hire. What made you want to tell this story?
There were many years in which I had the feeling, as my career was beginning to take off in television, that my success did not entirely feel like a victory, because of the type of men I had been dating, that being great made them feel little ones. It just made me realize how much control these ingrained power dynamics still have over us, and that was something I wanted to put on display and explore.
Was it always your intention to set it in the world of finance?
No, for me it was about capturing the pace of the story, how the relationship would implode once the power changed. That was the crux of the matter. But I had some friends in that world and it felt like something I could write from organically even if I had no experience in it.
The ups and downs, what was at stake in that kind of work environment, felt similar to what was at stake in the film and television industry: slip up once and you could be out. And I think the work hard and play hard aspect is in both of them as well. It was another male-dominated industry where women find it difficult to advance and when they do, they are treated differently, as we all know.
How did you learn the slang?
I invited a bunch of hedge fund guys over for drinks! (laughs) I got them drunk and started asking them very simple questions. It was really like learning a new language, like Spanish or coding or something. And honestly that was the easy part. Writing the emotional arcs of the characters was much more challenging.
The film really depends on the performances of the two leads and their chemistry. How did you find them?
When you get (casting) lists, you get the same 15 names that everyone gets. But the casting director mentioned Phoebe for “Bridgerton,” so I saw the pilot and thought he already had it. There was vulnerability but also fierceness, an unbridled fury that could be unleashed. There was also something exciting about cutting off her corset, putting her in a suit, and turning her into a shark.
I had loved Alden since (the 2016 Coen Brothers comedy) “Hail Caesar,” but I knew it was going to take a very confident man to reach Luke’s level of insecurity. In other male actors I had met I could sense his hesitation. But Alden was ready to commit and get in the mud with me, and he did.
Some critics have touted “Fair Play” as the return of the erotic thriller. Do you think that’s true?
I didn’t set out to make an erotic thriller. I set out to make a thriller about the power dynamics within a relationship, and that definitely has some crossovers. But I think our job as new filmmakers is to do something different with the genre and manipulate it and twist it to serve our stories.
I don’t think it’s enough to make a good movie these days. You need to do something that cuts through people in some way and that holds up a mirror and makes them ask questions that they’re not asking and that starts a conversation and a debate. And this seemed like a topic that hadn’t really been explored on screen, at least not in this way.
The response from the public in the previous screenings has been very interesting: applauding, gasping and even shouting at the characters.
People reacted like it was a horror movie and that was very exciting for me. The intention was always to create this balloon of tension that you don’t know when or where it’s going to burst, but once it does, it becomes a total dogfight.
This looks like a dangerous dating movie. It may end up making some divorces easier.
In couples who have made it to early screenings, you see them start fighting on the way back to the car, like the guy says something and then his girlfriend slowly looks at him like, “ThatIs that what you thought? So yeah, I can’t wait to separate people. I’m here for it.