Honest Play (Sundance) Overview

We overview the Sundance 2023 choice Honest Play, starring Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor and Solo actor Alden Ehrenreich.

PLOT: Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) are a New York energy couple within the making. They each work as analysts for one of many prime funding corporations on Wall Avenue, and each appear to be inside a stone’s throw of an enormous promotion that may make their careers. Newly engaged, the 2 are confronted with an surprising problem when the facility dynamic between them shifts all of a sudden, with Emily promoted over Luke.

REVIEW: If ever there was an business with the potential to wreak havoc on relationships, it’s the world of finance. Many movies have depicted this business as cutthroat and poisonous. The fact is that small errors or miscalculations can break careers, and day-after-day brings the potential for break, regardless of how good you may need appeared yesterday. It attracts a sure kind of particular person, and the enterprise is punishing. Honest Play coveys this expertly, with Emily and Luke’s every day grind being introduced in nice element. The 2 are up at 430am day-after-day however, by necessity, are additionally out ingesting till daybreak each night time (after-hours golf equipment are the place many careers are made). There’s little or no room for a private life, and their agency explicitly forbids relationships inside the workplace.

Initially, the 2 appear ideally matched. They’re each younger and lovely and have the sting and confidence wanted to succeed. However, it will definitely turns into clear that Emily is good, whereas Luke is merely proficient, with their boss (Eddie Marsan) giving her a possibility that units her profession. The movie charts their shifting dynamic, with Luke’s jealousy rising extra poisonous by the second whereas Emily makes many misguided makes an attempt to construct him up, all of which backfire tremendously.

Honest Play may be very a lot within the fashion of the adult-oriented dramas and thrillers we used to get within the eighties and nineties, albeit by way of a special lens. If this had been to be made in that period, one might simply think about Michael Douglas as a extra sympathetic Luke. Right here he’s proven to be such a slave to his personal ambition that it threatens to show him into the sort of monster usually performed by girls like Demi Moore and Glenn Shut in these classic flicks.

That stated, I’d hesitate to say Honest Play is a PC model of these motion pictures. Author-director Chloe Domont desires to make a film that entertains and belongs on the shelf subsequent to one thing like Wall Avenue or Disclosure with out being watered-down. She’s directed just a few episodes of Billions and appears to have an affinity for the world. She depicts the hyper-macho, misogynist facet of the world but additionally has Emily take part, along with her tremendous being “one of many boys” if it helps her get forward.

The leads listed below are wonderful, with Phoebe Dynevor of Bridgerton a terrific alternative for the lead. She jogged my memory of a younger Naomi Watts or Nicole Kidman and fitted completely into the milieu being created by Domont. You consider her as somebody who might rise to the highest and be simply as calculating because the boys if want be, and Domont by no means softens her an excessive amount of. She has sufficient tough edges to make her attention-grabbing.

Nonetheless, many people will little question be buzzing about Alden Ehrenreich, with this a robust comeback automobile for the actor. He performs Luke’s mounting insecurity and toxicity in a approach that enables him to command the display screen. His de-evolution feels official because of the shading current in his efficiency from the primary drama. Once more, it’s rather a lot just like the sort of position Michael Douglas may need performed just a few many years in the past, however with out the necessity to make him likable. Luke is a bastard, and Ehrenreich embraces this facet of him.

Eddie Marsan can be terrific because the lead’s boss, a hard-bitten titan of the business who’s not above calling Emily a “silly f**ckin b**ch” when she makes a pricy mistake but additionally acknowledges her potential and isn’t introduced as predatory – a minimum of not in a sexual approach. The movie is frenetically paced and feels slick sufficient (being produced by Rian Johnson) that it wouldn’t be shocking to see a outstanding indie label like A24 or Searchlight decide it up until Netflix (well) snaps it as much as capitalize on Dynevor’s recognition off Bridgerton. It’s a slick, taut drama with some thriller parts baked in. It’s most likely essentially the most entertaining movie I’ve seen at Sundance this 12 months, so preserve a watch out for it.

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