Fair Play: Fairly Good

I watched Fair Play -- a 2023 movie on Netflix last night -- because, well I've been a fan of Rich Sommer since he played Harry Crane on Mad Men (and he looked then like a young Isaac Asimov), [see

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Isaac Asimov (1965) and Harry Crane aka Rich Sommer (1960)

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and Eddie Marsan has been one of my favorites since he played Ray Donovan's older brother on Ray Donovan, the Showtime series that ended too soon.

Also, I'm always willing to give an erotic thriller a chance.

And the two -- Marsan and Sommer -- play a mean, soulless chief (Campbell) and assistant (Paul) of a hedge fund from hell, though for all I know, that's what all or at least most hedge fund offices are like.

But that's not really what Fair Play is about.  It's about a couple, Emily and Luke, who love sex and get engaged, right before Emily gets promoted to the job Luke was yearning for.  The promotion devastates their relationship to the point where Luke is unable to perform in bed, despite Emily's inducements.  I actually had a slightly difficult time believing this because, well, Phoebe Dynevor as Emily is an excellent, convincing actress.  But tensions between the two escalate. Luke continues to not have the good sense to find another job (another somewhat unbelievable lack of development, since Luke, well played by Alden Ehrenreich, otherwise seems pretty smart), and in the end, verbal attacks and lack of sex escalate into ... well, I don't want to give too much of the ending away.

All in all, I think Fair Play is worth seeing.  But a little more subtlety would have helped the story.  It's ok for Emily's mother to be a caricature, but I would've liked to have seen a little more depth in the other characters, beginning with Campbell and Paul.