EXCLUSIVE: Deadline’s annual Read the Screenplay series spotlighting awards season’s most talked-about scripts kicks off this year with Fair Play, Chloe Domont‘s debut feature that Netflix acquired after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
Domont, whose TV directing credits include Billions and Suits, made her feature screenwriting and helming debut with the pic, which was spawned via T-Street and MRC’s Emerging Filmmaker Program and counts Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman among the executive producers.
The script for the relationship thriller follows Emily (Bridgerton‘s Phoebe Dynover) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), who work together at a cutthroat financial firm and are also a couple. When a coveted promotion arises, the pair’s once supportive exchanges begin to sour as power and gender dynamics irrevocably shift, forcing them to face the true price of success and the limits of ambition.
Dumont said the film’s themes resonate in these times.
“The most exciting thing is I’ve seen couples who’ve seen the movie together and you see them talking about it after,” Dumont said during a panel for the film at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles. “Then the guy will say something and the woman’s like, ‘Oh, that’s what you thought?’ You just know it’s going to be a great car ride home.”
Eddie Marsan, Rich Sommer and Sebastian De Souza also star in the pic, which hit theaters at the end of September and dropped on Netflix on October 6, when it was No. 1 in its debut week on the streamer and subsequently spent three weeks in the global top 10.
Read the script here: