As we journey by way 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 turn out to be 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 Honest Play, the auspicious debut function of TV writer-director Chloe Domont which premiered right here on the Sundance Movie Pageant on Friday.
The movie is a few 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 first of the movie, they’re meager analysts, angling for larger standing in a merciless and cruel ecosystem. Although they’re toiling on the howling-hot heart 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 vogue—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 unsuitable 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 folks rejoice as reality with a heady spherical of booze and intercourse. However a gathering with the boss swiftly upends their completely happy, supportive dynamic: it’s Emily who’s being promoted as a substitute.
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 simply accept and modify to those new realities, Domont doesn’t lets us settle into an anticipated narrative. To Honest 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 keep 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, quite a lot of restraint stays. Domont eschews apparent developments and applies cautious particulars that maintain Honest 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 collection Bridgerton, and so she arrived within the movie, for me anyway, as an exquisite discovery. She shrewdly manages Emily’s completely different strains of mettle, her office acumen and her acute sense of stability at dwelling. She and Domont additionally properly let Emily transgress, to be at fault, to be maybe a bit insensitive to Luke’s extra affordable gripes. (Of which there aren’t many.)
Ehrenreich, in the meantime, doesn’t make Luke an apparent monster, nor a great man falling helplessly prey to deeply ingrained male entitlement. He’s someplace in an unpleasant, credible center, doing egocentric issues however often resetting to decency—or, at the least, a efficiency of it. It’s a terrific flip from an actor whose promising profession was seemingly blown astray by Solo (a superbly entertaining Star Wars film) and should solely now be recovering. Or, at the least, it ought to be so as soon as extra folks see Honest Play, such a forceful reminder of his expertise.
Honest 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—can even admire the alternatives the film might make however doesn’t. There’s little didacticism right here. Solely a handful of strained moments too-aggressively level themselves at crowd-pleasing vengeance. Honest Play is a movie aware of web discourse however not appearing 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 gorgeous disharmony.
