The sexiest there is: the hot movie that Netflix bought for a crazy record amount - voila! culture

Director Chloe Dumont at the Sundance Film Festival (Sundance Film Festival)

The Sundance Film Festival will come to an end at the end of the week, and we can start with summaries.

The hottest commodity in it was the film in question "Fair Play".

The various players in the market fought to acquire the rights to it, and in the end Netflix came out victorious after putting no less than twenty million dollars on the table - a high amount by any standard, and certainly in the terms of the festival, the flagship event of independent cinema in America.

If you're looking for the Israeli point behind this deal, it's easy to find: the film was produced by Rian Johnson and Israeli-American Ram Bergman, who are responsible, among other things, for the "Well Written Murder" film series.

I also mention this because in my opinion it is no coincidence that an Israeli-American dared to sponsor such an explosive project.

Not sure an American-American would have dared

A smart bet: being the "365 days" of the academics, "Fair Play" will climb to the first place in the viewing chart of Netflix, and will start conversations about all the topics it deals with: MeToo, relationships in the workplace, the relationship between ambition and libido, the brittleness of the male ego and

more The film was written and directed by Chloe Dumont, whose resume includes episodes in "Billions".

"Fair Play" is somewhat reminiscent of the series, but as many have already written, it mostly looks like a combination between "Fateful Courtship" and "The Industry".

"Fateful Courtship" of 2023. From "Fair Play" (Photo: Sundance Festival)

At the center of the plot are a young man and a young woman, who work together in an investment fund.

They have not yet found a room where they won't feel like having sex, contrary to company policy, they are having a secret affair and even decide to get engaged.

When a promotion option opens up in the company, the guy is sure he will get it and even jokes about what he would do if he had to choose between the job and his lover, but what?

Over time, it becomes clear that he is just working around the clock, while the heroine is a genius.

The promotion will be hers, which will derail their relationship.

The film begins with a scene of oral sex involving the female period, and blood is also spilled later on.

It has phrases like "I'll save your career if you eat my pussy", there is a knife and there is violence, and there is one sex scene that can only be talked about for hours, but I wish they would also talk about the director's craft, from the stunning opening to the ending.

The heroine is played by Phoebe Dinbour from "Bridgerton" in her first significant major film role.

If she doesn't win an Oscar for it, she will win a statuette in the coming years for another film.

She is simply amazing.

By the way, it is interesting to note that unlike the hit series in which she starred, this movie does have wild sex - but no nudity.

It is no coincidence that it was created by a director of a new generation of directors, and it is also part of the border between provocation and exploitation.

Elden Ehrenreich, who was the next big thing and then crashed with the shocking Solo: A Star Wars Story, plays the demented person opposite her, and comes from an ideal vulnerable place to play a man who could kill himself if he jumped from his ego to his IQ.

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amazing

Phoebe Denver at the Sundance Film Festival (Photo: GettyImages, Corey Nichols)

After I saw the movie, someone asked me - "Well, is it worth twenty million dollars?".

So speaking of numbers: a lot of the dialogue in the film is based on investment fund jargon.

It's exhausting, but that's also part of the point here, because the whole essence of "Fair Play" is that money and work occupy the same volume as sex and gender.

This is also one of the differences between him and the "fated courtship" that he mentions so much.

There, the third rib was the hero's partner (and the poor rabbit who ends up in the pot, or was it a rabbit?).

Here the third side is the corporation, and this dynamic simply changes everything, and also leads to the most significant difference - the way in which the woman is described in "fatal courtship" compared to the way in which it is done here.

"Fateful Courtship" was one of the biggest hits of 1987, "Fair Play" will be one of the biggest hits of 2023. Some things change and some don't.

Long live the big difference.

Phoebe Denver at the Sundance Film Festival (Photo: GettyImages, Monica Sheafer)

And from the hit of the festival we will move on to one of his biggest flops - "Cat Person", which can also be categorized under the "MeToo movies" category, but in his case the result is depressing.

It received fatal reviews - and rightfully so, and it is currently unclear when and where it will be possible to see it beyond the festival.

The film is based on a short story of the same name by Kristen Rupnian, which was published in the New Yorker with miraculous timing - winter 2017, just as the MeToo changed the world, which made its content incredibly relevant and allowed the story to leave the ghetto of the literary world and become a viral phenomenon.

"Cat Person" is a masterful and incredibly complex story.

Even though it spans only about twenty pages, it is still an injustice to summarize it and we will do so only for the sake of the protocol.

His heroine is a cashier at an art house in her college town, and this position makes her the center of attention for men who see her as the ultimate maniac-pixie-girl,

The film takes these twenty pages and spreads them over almost two hours, which of course requires it to have a lot of extras.

Among other things, it does not stop at the (shaking and unforgettable) point where the story stops but continues another half hour later.

It's a shameful and miserable half hour.

On top of that, it begins with Margaret Atwood's famous quote "Men are afraid of being laughed at by women. Women are afraid of being killed by men," and this quote is more of its plot basis than the original short story, only it uses it in a way that would probably make Atwood cringe.

And so, from a witty and nuanced short story that cannot be easily categorized, "Cat Person" becomes a generic horror thriller.

Not worth Meow.

From "Cat Person" (Photo: Sundance Festival)

If that's not enough, then relative to the dubious genre, it's a rather inferior horror thriller, which is not good.

Fans of literary raw materials are used to outrage over their film adaptations, and this time there is a particularly good reason to be outraged.

The remembered Amelia Jones from "Coda" plays the heroine.

Nicholas Brown from "The Heirs" plays the guy and it is a failed and counterproductive casting.

Among other things, he is a bit too tall relative to the character and especially too thin.

The story often emphasizes that the man in question is chubby.

So the movie insists on making it a stick?

He thinks the audience can digest thrillers that deal with issues like serial killers, murder and rape but can't digest an overweight star?

Probably so.

On the left: scandalous casting.

Emilia Jones and Nicholas Brown at the Sundance Film Festival (Photo: GettyImages, Corey Nicholas)

All of this is also disappointing because behind the film is Susanna Vogel, who wrote the wonderful screenplay for "The Woods of the Night" and directed the wonderful "The Spy Who Dumped Me", but this time joins a long list of those who took a fine literary source and diluted it precisely when they tried to expand it.

What's more, the film has one virtue.

At its center is a sex scene the likes of which we have not seen in an American film for a long time.

A difficult, charged, clumsy, thought-provoking scene.

The last time we saw such a scene was in "People Who Are Not Me".

It lasts around twenty minutes which is probably how long the entire "Cat Person" was supposed to last.

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• Theater

• film review

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• Sundance Festival