Fair Play: Battle of the sexes in high finance

FAIR Play (2023) is perhaps the most unsettling movie set in Wall Street since, well, Wall Street (1997). Whereas the older film made people uncomfortable for glorifying greed above all else, the newer one has made many hot under the collar for its honest exploration of gender dynamics in the male-dominated world of high finance. 

It’s a post-#MeToo Molotov cocktail of a movie that neither men nor women would cheer about – and yet it requests to be seen, because it reminds us that the struggle for gender equality in the boardroom, bedroom and everywhere else is so very far from over. 

Written and directed by Chloe Domont, Fair Play tells the story of two junior financial analysts working in a ruthless hedge fund firm where profit is the only god. When we first meet them, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), are smart, sexy, madly in love and making love any chance they get. Because company policy prohibits employees from being romantically involved, the two keep their relationship a secret.

One morning, a project manager is fired for failing to perform. Rumour has it that Luke will be promoted to fill the role. The couple go home and celebrate with more sex and champagne, only for their boss Campbell (Eddie Marsan) to disrupt this expectation by promoting the more competent Emily instead.

Emily promises Luke she will help him get the next project manager position. But the power dynamics have already shifted: Luke feels emasculated by having to report to Emily as his boss, and Emily somehow feels guilty for accepting the promotion. 

While swopping views on data analysis and annualised returns, their romance starts to fall apart, as enchantment devolves into envy, and passion turns into paranoia. Can a man sustain his attraction to a woman who is more competent on the job than he is? Should a woman suppress her softness at the workplace in order to climb the ranks? 

Other films have tried to tackle these subjects before. But many, from The War Of The Roses (1989) and Disclosure (1994) to What Women Want (2000) and The Ugly Truth (2009), opt for over-sensational dramatisation – or outright comedy. 

In contrast, Fair Play is a largely nuanced study of how gender boosts or blocks your attempts to get ahead. Emily endures toxic masculine behaviour around her without saying a word. When her colleagues suggest going to a strip club, she doesn’t object. At a meeting with her boss at a bar, she asks for Diet Coke – and then quickly changes her order to Macallan 25, neat.

She is good enough at her job not to have to prove she can act like one of the boys. But in this high-stakes world of power, money, privilege, corporate camaraderie and friendly backstabbing, she is smart enough to know job skills alone are not enough, and that fair play does not really exist.

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The question is, how ruthless does she or anyone in her shoes needs to become in order to succeed in high finance? Unlike other movies of its ilk that strive for open endings or win-win solutions, Fair Play’s answer is unequivocal.

Fair Play is showing on Netflix