In A Time Of News That Overwhelms, Here Is A Captivating Temporary Escape

June 4, 2024,

In 2024, the news is overwhelming. Devastating wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Severe political strife in the United States where a civil war is no longer a distant possibility. Then the usual.

Powerful deadly tornadoes.

Global refugee crisis.

Drug wars, sex trafficking and corruption.

This is not the world we hoped for, but it is the one we have.

Overwhelming is the operative word.

Solutions?

Few permanent, since the world civilization order appears to be collapsing. You can get away but in the back of your mind you know it is temporary. It’s like having a job you hate, but must keep to pay the bills and support the needs of an existing family. Temporary solution?

You live for the weekend.

Friday evening is the best (order pizza).

Saturday is good. Go out and have some fun.

Sunday is okay. Watch the games on TV.

Sunday night is completely depressing.

And, you live that cycle over and over.

So, in the larger picture, while the news is depressing, you still can get away from it.

Temporarily.

Which raises a question. Is paradise shrinking? On the outside, yes. But inside your home? Inside of your mind?

It doesn’t have to be.

Our suggestion is to pick the quietest room in your home, cover the windows with black sheets, invest in a large screen TV and close the door. Go to the movies and be captivated. True, it is temporary but we’ve found it to be an essential escape.

Have a movie marathon. Get off of work a little early, get some fantastic takeout, come home and get started. We like Friday because you know you have Saturday as a buffer. Your mind on Friday is allowed to be somewhere else.

Away from the overwhelming news. Don’t even think about. Just enjoy movies that captivate, eat some good food and be engulfed in a different and brooding world. Do not answer the phone unless it is an emergency.

Ready?

Time for two female driven gems.

Turn out the lights. We have some movies for you that will engulf, captivate and allow you to escape.

Fair Play is a 2023 American erotic thriller film written and directed by Chloe Domont, in her feature directorial debut. It stars Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan, and Rich Sommer. The film follows a young couple whose relationship starts to unravel following an unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund firm.

Fair Play premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2023, and was released in select theaters on September 29, 2023, before its streaming release by Netflix on October 6, 2023. The film received positive reviews from critics.

The question we had when watching this film is why did it resonate so strongly with us?

Let’s get some basics first.

The film starts out with the loving couple Emily and Luke as equals in terms of job and finance at a major Hedge Fund company. They plan on getting married.

Things change when Emily tells Luke that she overheard a rumor that he is in line for a major promotion.

He does not get the promotion.

Emily does.

That is when things begin to go downhill. The movie will portray Luke as the bad guy, and in many ways he is, but that is completely from a female perspective. Here?

Emily is absolutely no saint either.

The writer and director Chloe Domont explains the movie to you at Elle Magazine. Here is the link: https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a45461519/fair-play-ending-explained-meaning-chloe-domont-interview/

Is her analysis accurate? Yes, it’s her movie.

But it is from a female perspective.

This is one of the reasons why we purposely did not read David Lynch’s explanation of the masterpiece film Mulholland Drive. Why?

Because it is not our perspective. We are now going to give a perspective from a man’s point of view of Fair Play.

We will turn to our associate Chet.

What was Luke’s real failing here? Once Emily got promoted over him, he had a major decision to make. A massive but simple question to ask.

Can he, as a man, marry a woman who is far more successful than him?

Can he do it?

It is a simple question isn’t it?

Luke never seems to ask himself that important question. He says in the end, that he is nothing. That actually isn’t true. As far as we can tell, he is a college educated man, holding down a well- paying job that many women would be happy with.

He is something.

But he is not Emily.

Get it?

He is not a drug addict. He is not gambling away his money. He is not randomly sleeping with one woman after another. He is not stealing from the company.

He is something.

Just not as elite as Emily.

What would our associate Chet do in this situation?

As soon as Emily got that promotion, and knowing her personality, for example, now she demands having sex when she is ready. Whether Luke is ready, in her mind, is completely irrelevant. It’s all about her needs and power and control. After all, a real man is supposed to always be ready.

He spends three thousand dollars on a course to better himself and she essentially lets him know that he wasted his money. The fact that she just spent five thousand dollars at a strip club, sitting and drinking with her bosses is “okay”.

Despite the director’s feminist view, is Emily a villain?

No, she is not. But she is the personality profile that we sense most men would find hard to marry while they are in an inferior position to her.

So, what would Chet do?

As soon as Emily got that promotion, Chet would have lots of great sex with her (to celebrate her promotion of course) and then start packing his bags. Why?

He cannot live with a woman, and especially one with Emily’s growing dominant personality, complete with not so veiled insults, who is in a superior position to him. Emily should absolutely take that promotion. She deserves it.

But they need to part ways early and avoid all of the drama because Luke made a decision to not ask himself the most important question right from the beginning.

We didn’t say the two movies would be feel good movies. We said they would captivate and this one absolutely does. Don’t let anything distract you.

Emily the Criminal is a 2022 American crime thriller film written and directed by John Patton Ford in his feature film debut.

It stars Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Gina Gershon.

Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com Editorial-credit-Tinseltown-Shutterstock.com_

It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2022, and was released in the United States on August 12, 2022, by Vertical Entertainment and Roadside Attractions. It received generally positive reviews from critics for its social commentary and Plaza’s performance.

Social commentary?

After watching this quiet masterpiece, you will want to comment.

Here is the storyline.

Emily lives in Los Angeles and is deeply in debt (at least 70 grand).

She struggles to pay off her student loans, largely because a felony conviction prevents her from obtaining a well-paying job.

Consequently, she delivers food as an “independent contractor” (translation: low pay) for a catering company.

A co-worker connects Emily to a “dummy shopper” service that promises to make her $200 in one hour.

The service is revealed to be a credit card fraud ring, and Emily meets Youcef, one of its organizers, who instructs her to purchase a flat-screen TV using a fake card and ID. The next day, Emily is sent on a larger job (purchasing a car on a no-limit credit card) which goes poorly after the dealer discovers the scam, leading to a physical altercation.

Guess what?

Innocent looking Emily survives a head bash and nose bleed and it changes her for good.

What captivated us about the film was how Emily figured out, as, in all fairness, so many of us don’t, that in this life, one person after another will take advantage of you if they can.

If you let them.

And they don’t respect you for it.

They don’t feel sorry for you.

And, if you let them do it again. They will.

Her confrontations with Job Interviewers, are classic. Especially the one who wanted her to be an Intern, in a highly desirable position, for “free”.

Emily made it clear in no uncertain terms what she thought of her and the audacity to ask someone to work for free.

Emily’s position is, don’t be a victim.

The perpetrator is not the one to be afraid of.

You are.

What a concept.

And, she follows through on that philosophy in real and painful terms. The antagonists are either unwilling or unable to come back for seconds.

No matter what she does to them, we don’t feel sorry for them. We have met too many predators (with a soft smile) in our life and we didn’t impress upon them that we are the ones to be feared as Emily so brilliantly and violently did.

We watched this film three times.

How many times will you watch it?

There you have it. Two female driven movies to watch in the dark that will suck you in and not let go. It is a captivating escape.