As we journey by means of the period of the so-called #MeToo film, it’s fascinating to see what new shapes and subtleties these movies tackle. The reckonings and recriminations have develop into no much less daring within the final 5 years, however the messages being imparted have possibly been difficult and honed by the passage of time. Look, for example, to the brand new movie Truthful Play, the auspicious debut function of TV writer-director Chloe Domont which premiered right here on the Sundance Movie Competition on Friday.
The movie is a couple of sizzling younger couple, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), whose romance is a secret on the high-powered hedge fund the place they each work. At the beginning of the movie, they’re meager analysts, angling for greater standing in a merciless and cruel ecosystem. Although they’re toiling on the howling-hot middle of capitalist evil, we unusually root for these engaging go-getters. Their clandestine affair—effectively, it’s greater than that; they’ve simply gotten engaged, in sweetly messy style—offers them a horny, conspiratorial glow that we’re helplessly drawn towards. Ominous music (by Brian McOmber) and shadowy cinematography (by Menno Mans) inform us we’re most likely fallacious to pine after them.
When a superior is let go (he destroys his workplace with a golf membership in response), a coveted place opens up. Emily overhears that Luke goes to get the promotion, a rumor these two intensely (sociopathically?) bold individuals have a good time as truth with a heady spherical of booze and intercourse. However a gathering with the boss swiftly upends their completely satisfied, supportive dynamic: it’s Emily who’s being promoted as an alternative.
Thus Domont begins traversing a wide range of fronts within the gender wars. At first, we guiltily really feel a nervous tingle of social order disrupted—we all know we shouldn’t cringe with fear over a lady getting promoted over a person, even when (or possibly particularly when) he’s her meant, and but we do. How will Luke react to this potential slight to his manhood, and what, if something, can or ought to Emily do to mitigate that? Domont retains plucking the strings of these questions because the couple’s tensions and frustrations mount. Luke’s encouraging, proud-of-you-babe demeanor falters; a foul commerce is made and Emily finds herself within the sizzling seat; Emily’s new extracurricular job necessities have her drifting deeper into the snake pit of finance-bro depravity.
As Emily and Luke battle to just accept and alter to those new realities, Domont doesn’t lets us settle into an anticipated narrative. To Truthful Play’s nice credit score, it’s by no means clear the place precisely the movie goes: whether or not Luke will redeem himself or sink additional into envious rage; if Emily will preserve her already tenuous footing or will give in to any, or all, of the fealty-demanding males round her. Issues do finally shift into melodrama, however even then Domont has a agency command of her yawing ship. Regardless of all of the histrionics swallowing up the movie, a substantial amount of restraint stays. Domont eschews apparent developments and applies cautious particulars that maintain Truthful Play sinewy and intriguing.
She has good assist in that regard from Dynevor and Ehrenreich. Their performances are electrifying, in moments of fraught quiet and of their characters’ hyper-volume, venomous arguments. I used to be beforehand unfamiliar with Dynevor, who’s greatest recognized for the Netflix sequence Bridgerton, and so she arrived within the movie, for me anyway, as a beautiful discovery. She shrewdly manages Emily’s totally different strains of mettle, her office acumen and her acute sense of stability at dwelling. She and Domont additionally correctly let Emily transgress, to be at fault, to be maybe a bit insensitive to Luke’s extra cheap gripes. (Of which there aren’t many.)
Ehrenreich, in the meantime, doesn’t make Luke an apparent monster, nor man falling helplessly prey to deeply ingrained male entitlement. He’s someplace in an unsightly, credible center, doing egocentric issues however normally resetting to decency—or, a minimum of, a efficiency of it. It’s a terrific flip from an actor whose promising profession was seemingly blown off track by Solo (a superbly entertaining Star Wars film) and will solely now be recovering. Or, a minimum of, it needs to be so as soon as extra individuals see Truthful Play, such a forceful reminder of his expertise.
Truthful Play is designed to court docket controversy, to be a lightning rod for intense debate, on-line and off. The movie will definitely get what it’s asking for in that regard. However I additionally hope that future viewers—be they watching on streaming, or in theaters, or wherever—will even respect the alternatives the film may make however doesn’t. There’s little didacticism right here. Solely a handful of strained moments too-aggressively level themselves at crowd-pleasing vengeance. Truthful Play is a movie attentive to web discourse however not performing in service of it. It’s a grim, dynamic thriller, one which units office and residential crashing into each other in a small symphony of lovely disharmony.
