The Big Picture - Why We Need Sex Scenes in Movies and ‘Fair Play’

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Sean and Amanda review a trio of movies—‘Fair Play’ (1:00), ‘The Royal Hotel’ (30:00), and ‘Cat Person’ (40:00)—before having a wider conversation about the current role of sex in cinema (52:00). Then, Sean is joined by ‘Fair Play’ writer-director Chloe Domont to discuss her debut feature, the process of having a movie acquired out of Sundance, and the kinds of projects she’s interested in tackling next (1:20:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chloe Domont Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if you got scammed? Would you suffer in silence, or would you do something about it? Well, I got scammed once, and this is the story of what I did. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, a true crime podcast from The Ringer. And for seven episodes, we're hunting a con man. A guy with a lot of aliases. A guy who's ruined a lot of weddings. And with the help of some friends, I just might be able to catch him.

Listen to The Wedding Scammer starting October 17th. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about sex. God. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Chloe Doman, the writer-director behind Fair Play, the new Netflix workplace relationship thriller that we'll be discussing on the show today. Chloe is an exciting new feature filmmaker. We had an insightful chat that I hope you will stick around for if you have seen that film. But first, Amanda and I are going to dig into three new releases and how their subject matter had us thinking about at least one thing they have in common. All three films are written and directed by female filmmakers,

and all three circle sex and, honestly, the menacing way it manifests in the workplace or in life or relationships, society. So, Amanda, one, do you feel prepared for this conversation with me? I've been trying not to overthink it, you know, because you put this in the spreadsheet, and I have known that it was coming, and I thought, like, huh, that's going to be interesting. But if I prepare too much for what it's going to be like to sit across from Sean and think about this, I might psych myself out. You're not the first gal that said that.

Let me tell you. Here's the other thing. This is about sex, but it's basically about, it's not really about sex. No. It's like not at all. And that but it's basically about it's not really about sex no it's like not not at all so that and that's what's interesting about it um well one it's not about the act of sex but the representation of sex sure but also what is and is represented on screen right now and in these specific movies is interesting and not as awkward as some other conversations could be yeah i think by the time we get through the three films, we'll have a wider conversation about something that has been,

I guess, moving through the general discourse about movies and television over the last decade or so about the utility or necessity or value of the sex scene and representation of sex acts in movies. And there's this understanding, I guess, that maybe Gen Z doesn't think that it's as valuable as Gen X or Boomers or Us might think it is or was based on the entertainment that we got previously. So these three movies, and we'll start with Fair Play, are quite fascinating to me to look through that prism. As I said, Fair Play is a movie about a young couple

in a relationship. They work at the same hedge fund and they become engaged. And as some move up and others don't quite move up inside of that hedge fund and the power dynamic and their relationship shifts, their relationship changes a lot. And the film stars Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich as the two young people in the couple. Phoebe Dynevor, I think people may know from Bridgerton or Younger. My wife pointed out that she was appeared in the show Younger. That's what she said. I don't know if that's true. Hold on. I didn't watch that show.

I watched like honestly all of it and I'm Googling it right now. This is great podcasting, Younger. Phoebe Dynevor-Yarg. Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah. She's the other woman who has the baby with the guy. Spoiler alert for season something of Younger. I think it's like four or five. Okay.

Alden Ehrenreich, of course, was a hotly tabbed young actor between seven and ten years ago. Appeared in, you know, Hail Caesar, very memorably. And then was tabbed by Warren Beatty to appear in Rules Don't Apply, my beloved film, and then appeared as Han Solo. He was in that class of kind of

Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, you know, the young male leads of the mid-2010s. And we liked him a lot. And then Solo bombed quite magnificently at the box office. And he was forced to disappear for a few years. And he's making quite a comeback this year, which we'll talk about a little bit as well.

This movie was independently financed by MRC and was a big Sundance hit. And it was acquired for reportedly $20 million out of Sundance by Netflix. It is on the Netflix streaming service right now. It seems to be doing pretty well. I will say I'm surprised it has not been more of a conversation point, more of a thing. I wonder if perhaps they're leaning too far into the quote unquote controversial aspects of this story. I'm very interested what you think about this movie,

because it is the kind of movie that we frequently ask for yes it is an original film with a genre bent young stars a promising young writer director a female writer director and with a big audience now that is available widely for people to see there are things about this movie i really liked especially the first two-thirds of the movie and then there are some choices that are made that i have some complicated feelings about so i'm curious what you thought of fair play i agree with you i think you saw it at sundance i saw it like at home this weekend uh my husband had seen it already so i just had to watch it by myself uh and i really i love that it exists i really like the premise and a lot of the ideas there are parts of it that were very

irritating to me. And I wondered if that was the point. And I think it might be. And it certainly engaged me. And so I really like it, even though I have some notes. And I think some of my notes are the point of the movie and are conversation starters, which is a part of the movie. And then I think some of my notes are, it's really hard to make a movie and some things work and some things don't. Yeah, I think the movie is very purposefully kind of probing and at times poking the audience to think about what is actually transpiring between these two people. It starts out, as I would say, a fairly sturdy and almost subtle character drama. The opening bits of the movie are about this young

couple who are getting engaged and falling in love and setting us in the world of high finance. And there are dramatic, noisy moments, but it is a movie that really depends upon the actors' faces and the way that they communicate with each other quietly. And the movie over time, I'm not sure if it devolves necessarily but their relationship devolves in a pretty profound way and it becomes

a much more emotive and expressive and loud and noisy and chaotic movie and of course that is what tends to happen

in relationships when they fall apart so I think that that's fair it's a movie that is also very clearly operating in kind of like a post-Me Too world and saying like

this is about women taking the power back in circumstances. A movie like this, the woman would have been the victim in 1994. And she is very much not the victim of this story, even though awful things happened to her. What are the things that you felt you were being poked by in this movie? Do you want to have the Alden Ehrenreich conversation now? Sure. About his character or about him as a man? Not about him as a man. Okay. Seems like a very nice man. He wore a nice shirt tucked into his

trousers with a belt to the Criterion closet. Yeah. If I weighed 10 pounds less, I would dress the way he dressed in the Criterion closet. Can I just say now, you do not need to weigh 10 pounds less and I need you to be eating lunch more. I'm thinking about it. And you could dress that way now if you want. How do you not? You basically dress that way. But I just don't tuck in. Yeah. It's not a belt culture for you. No, no. I'm not wearing a belt right now. I'm exploring belt culture. Interesting. For the fall and winter. Okay. I'm just letting you know. This is valuable. I've got some things saved on the RealReal. Okay. It's exciting. Let me know if you make any purchases before we started recording right i guess actually we were recording but we hadn't started the podcast we were going through

sophia coppola's like uh strategist piece of things i can't live without and sean was shocked by some of the price tags so i just i really don't want to let you know what the belt price are these like 900 belts that's like that's cute that's are they more than 900 i'm not gonna like actually buy a belt from the row like i can't afford it how much is a belt from the row uh the belt that i want from the row let's google it right now belt the row this is this is already a great googling episode uh shopping here we go why are those the words you're saying what shopping is that what you do when you shop oh you know what so this is only

600 oh that's good oh only 600 for a belt have you seen what's up with the rose prices sometimes i feel like um bruce willis and 12 monkeys where i wake up and i'm like why is everything 872 let me be very clear that i cannot afford a 600 belt from the row but that that's sort of like the model that's where of like the model. That's where I'm starting. And then it's like trickling down to the real, real. The real, real is not really doing the price cuts that I'm looking for. I need you to come home.

I need you to come back to Aldenare, right? You were going somewhere. So I'd actually, let's put a pin in clothes and quiet luxury and how it's reflected in this movie because i do that isn't i think an essential part of it absolutely and i get that on it um alden aaron reich i think he's an amazing actor and i don't know whether he's cast perfectly in this or totally miscast so i this was the long discussion point with my wife as well yeah so he plays luke in the in the beginning of the film it's made made to seem as though Luke is the one who has been

picked for this new PM job at this hedge fund and that he is going to rise through the ranks. And then that creates this kind of traditional power dynamic where he is the man and he will be the earner and the leader in the family. And Emily will have the job, but she will be subservient to him in some way and then very quickly the tables turn on that and emily is summoned to a bar by her boss played by the great eddie marsan in a very classic like shitheel of the universe performance um and she's told that she gets the job and so this guy who starts out as this very sweet but kind of like falsely confident young man about town in New York, he really kind of descends into a kind of madness throughout this movie. He's completely destroyed by the inferiority that he feels to his partner and begins studying leadership strategies and signing up for online courses. So this is the first thing where I felt, not the first thing, but I felt very needled by the seemingly like Jordan Peterson-esque figure who has worked into this film.

And it had real echoes of like, don't worry, darling, for me. Played by the great Patrick Fischler, I'll just say, who I love. But yes, there is something to this. And so, I'm looking for strategies to not feel weak as fuck. Yeah, and I just like,

had another like, real moment of like, oh God, like we're doing another like, incel YouTube, what's wrong with Bobby's generation.

Bobby, I'm glad that you're staying on screen for this because I do feel like a lot of my content is going to be like, what's wrong with 27 year olds or whatever

um and then i hope you're not expecting me to have all the answers and then you can respond uh so yeah so it brings in the weird like youtube like echoes i guess of the game which was our generations uh jordan peterson i suppose but it's very obvious and a little forced. And when you can feel the talking points or that I'd like to comment on this social aspect of a movie, when you feel the machinery working, it can be a little frustrating. I felt poked, but maybe not in the,

oh, what an interesting idea. More in like the, oh, what an interesting idea. More than just like, oh, this is very annoying. Just out of curiosity, do you feel that because you're in a healthy, stable relationship at a different phase of your life, that maybe this story doesn't feel as kind of resonant or meaningful to you now as it might if you were 27 and you know no not at all and single um because this is still about two people who are negotiating money and power in their relationship and money and power is a part of like marriage for sure i don't know if you know this but marriage is primarily a financial arrangement as i learned after I signed everything away. Yeah.

No, that's okay. Communicated by a complete sociopath raised by two lawyers. Just want that on the record. In case people are wondering why Amanda is the way that she is, circle back to that little statement she just made. It's very important though for this conversation in a lot of ways. I mean, you and I are both, are both of our spouses work. They're both professional people. And my husband is in the same industry.

Yes, right. As mine. We do very different things and it shook out. But there was a time when we were both competing. Staff writers for magazines. We were never competing, but it was like, okay,

you know, we are doing the same thing and we have to learn how to both like prioritize in the basic time sense and the okay you were going to need to do this and by the way we still have to do that because now we're both like involved parents and so we're prior like you need to go to this meeting and you have to do this and that and the other but but yeah there is if not competition then at least like oh you're having a lot of success right now or you're going to have success with this. And how does it all shake out? Yeah, I think it's resonant as well.

I was asking that as kind of a prompt so I could draw that out of you because I feel similarly. And I asked Eileen to watch this with me for the same reason because we've had this interesting dynamic too where she was very successful immediately out of school and has worked at the same job at the same place for 15 years and has done incredibly well but has had a kind of stability. I've changed jobs many times. I've had big failures. I've had big successes. It's been a very up-and-down experience for me professionally. One of the reasons why I love her,

she is the most steadfast person about all of those things, really supports me. This is a relationship in which, in this film, the two people are very purposefully imperfect. And I thought the Emily character, I have a lot of thoughts about the Emily character in the way that you had some thoughts about the Luke character. It is very clear to me that Chloe Duhemont wanted Emily to be flawed,

but wanted her to be ultimately right in this experience. That it is an experience that many women are put into, maybe not specifically in this way, but she has talked about her experience being in relationships with creative people while her star started to rise as a filmmaker and the men in her relationships feeling inferior or away about it

and how that informed this character. The world of high finance is a little bit different but in the same way that you thought alden erinreich might not have been right i had i'm not sure phoebe denver was quite right for this part even though i weirdly think that the movie only works because they're both so great so right it's an odd so i thought she was amazing here here is the real question and you wrote this in the doc and I was wondering it independently, which is like, do they have chemistry? And is that the point? with each other. When they are communicating, I don't really sense that they are a match, but they have that thing that so many people have in young relationships,

which is they have this kind of tenacity for each other. The movie opens with this sort of like party and then they start to have sex in a bathroom. Right. And then we learn that

Emily has her period and then there's this very kind of funny, gross, good, I thought like really clever little scene. I thought that that was probably the only scene where i was like oh you guys actually really do have some sort of connection but that's the one

where they're supposed to like like each other you know and so the rest of the film they are like opposed in one way which can certainly have like a, you know, a powerful dynamic. See like literally every single romantic comedy like I've ever loved. But they don't really have that same like charge against each other in the same way. I feel like she does more than he does. Yeah. He is like reduced to a weak boy within 30 minutes. Well,

so I mean, that's the other thing is like reduced to a weak boy within 30 minutes. Well, so, I mean, that's the other thing is like I became very exasperated with that character. And or which is the point of the movie, right? But then some of it was like I was just annoyed with Alden Ehrenreich just kind of like being quiet and mumbling. And I think that's a little bit the point and a little bit generational and a little bit casting you know and i don't know whether something bigger from him to match what's big from her like i i think that she is was given direction and is playing like the alpha yeah and he is playing the beta on purpose because that's a major part of the movie but i like i think a reconstituted beta though like somebody who didn't realize he was going to

be the beta so that for 40 minutes of the movie he's just boiling quietly yeah he really is trying to figure out he's like trying to modulate in the second act so that he doesn't overreact to things and then there is a confrontation after the strip club scene in the middle of the movie right where she calls him pathetic and he calls her, he says that she's, you know, they think of her like

their hooker or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the movie kind of explodes. Like, that's when the fireworks go off. Yeah. My issue with her

more specifically is not necessarily the way that the character is written. It's that she's supposed to be from Linbrook, Long Island. Right. And I have some unique insight into this because, of course, I'm from Long Island.

I'm sure. My father's sister lived in Linbrook for 30 years and raised the son. And my cousin Dan works at a hedge fund. Oh, okay. And he's from Linbrook. And the movie frames Linbrook like it's a fucking dirtball hole in the wall. It's like a perfectly nice middle class community. There's a sequence where Eddie Martin where he's like, how'd you crawl out of that hole in Linbrook on Long Island?

Which is one of the weirdest scenes I can imagine. Well, so can we talk now about like the how it portrays the hedge fund world and New York and all of that stuff? Because I think to me, that's where the movie really falters. You know, and part of it is unfair that we have industry and industry is like a wonderful show. And I think just,

you know, is more lived in certainly has more time to be lived in, but I would just, you know, is more lived in, certainly has more time to be lived in. But I would just say, like, the quality of the script writing and the exposition and how they are communicating or, like, not communicating these complex financial topics, but also power dynamics, the, like, the aggression, all of elements um is just superior it just like is uh you know i i'm a huge fan of industry but that's kind of how it is and then i have a friend who has been watching this movie in 20 minute increments because it stresses her out but she texted me that both the clothes and the sets um she's like i just wish they were better it looks kind of like ai and i do think that there is something like. Is it an adequate representation of the way that people dress in that world?

I don't even think so. Like, because then I was thinking about, you know, billions is the other like recent reference. And that, you know, you think of the the vests and the zips and everything that just look... This is all like looked pretty anonymous and like without point of view, which maybe is accurate, but for a film like doesn't pop off and just kind of looks... I think we've been trained to expect that sequences in these environments are funny. I think the big short boiler room billions industry, these are kind of like

jocular workspaces where masculinity is pushed around. And I've seen people note that like some of the dialogue amongst the hedge fund bros doesn't quite feel like hedge fund bro conversation points. And so maybe there is something like this is not a native space for the writer. I honestly don't know. I think it does. There is a kind of plastic quality. Hedge funds, though, I mean, I've not spent a lot of time in hedge funds, but they're very different from like trading room floors. You know, they're often much smaller outfits. They're kind of idiosyncratic, depending on what the leadership is like. This is one that felt like they were trying to create this kind of like little mini dictatorship, you know, this little banana republic of, you know, dominated by this one or two guys, you know, Rich Summer from Mad Men and Eddie Marsan.

And everybody is kind of cowering in their face. And there's that moment when Alden Ehrenreich sort of, like, throws himself before his boss and says, you know, I will do anything. Like, you are my god. And so it's just a different environment. Like, to me, industry, industry i agree industry is one of my favorite shows i'm on the record about how much i love that show that show is just more fun this movie is not very fun and actually it's quite anxiety yeah but i mean for me it was things like the three obligatory like exposition setting scenes of like here we've got to do this trade

and you know we need to do this presentation and And it's just written very broadly, you know, and some of that is just because you only have two hours in a movie versus however, you know, and you're trying to bring people in. And then everyone is just meeting like in the one office room with the glass windows, because that was like what they could afford to build, you know? And I'm like, okay, you can just, again, you can feel the furniture moving around a bit. And, but I thought everything having to do with the hedge fund itself and, and then to, you know, the, the Long Island stuff in the sense of, oh, this is like a very fancy place and this is elevated and you've really made it out of somewhere. I mean, that's all stakes building, right? And so some of the stakes just felt sort of rudimentary, you know, suddenly, suddenly she gets a promotion and she, you know, and, oh, we reversed this trade in like four minutes and, you know, oh,

we made like $25 million. There, there was something about it that didn't quite land for me, which is essential to how the movie works because you got to believe that these are these are big stakes no doubt i didn't struggle with that stuff as much but i do think that it's you're right that it's not as nuanced as other portrayals of that world that we've seen um so one conversation that's been happening around this movie that i think is quite fascinating and is relevant to this bigger conversation we're having about sex in the movies is is this an erotic thriller because there are these basically three sex scenes one that is um a very consensual bathroom sequence that i just described one that is sort of a failure to launch moment between the two of them and then one that

it comes at a critical moment near the end of the film it is a very violent sex act that one character says is a rape and the other character says is not. And the movie really turns on this really critical scene. And I think it is a huge part of the provocation of the movie. Yeah. And spins us towards the conclusion of the film. There was a part of me watching this movie that thought that there was one more sequence that happens after that scene where the movie could have ended. Now, if the movie had ended after that conversation, then the Phoebe Dynevor character would not have gotten the powerful moment that the film concludes on.

But I wonder, I guess my biggest question is, does the ending of the movie work for you? Because I think I've seen really split feelings about it. It honestly really did. And the, and, and I, I mean, it sounds incredibly weird to say the really violent sex scene that you just described,

like also worked for me. It's very upsetting to watch. Um, and I, and I do think part of like the ongoing conversation of what, how and what do we want to see sex scenes in movies is about just like a lot of gratuitous rape scenes that you just never need to see. That scene to me is kind of like the fulcrum of the movie

and certainly the fulcrum of the film's exploration of relationships and power and sex. And I think that stuff is way more pinned down than maybe some of the other finance stuff, certainly. And it's really hard to watch, but I felt like it was a pretty interesting, or not interesting, but like effective exploration of like, of, of those questions and what it's trying to ask um and then i really like the way it ends because it gives her you know it makes the ending makes me not feel as bummed out about like the whole rest i guess experience that she gets something i suppose right yeah just like very spoilers for the next couple of minutes if you haven't seen this movie

um it's really thorny and it being thorny is actually a it's a dramatic achievement yeah but is the question being asked that this woman having a powerful moment in which she humiliates and and leaves this man in the final three minutes of the movie. Is that a victory after being raped? Like, it obviously makes the audience feel like she has won something over on him. And that she will now go forward in her life with success. And that he will be a failure who will continue to be in relationships in which he feels inferior. And that he has problems. And that she's a woman on the rise, right?

That's more or less like the tie it in a bow framework for the feeling at the end of the characters. But if you believe that he raped her and at a certain point, literally in the middle of the sex, like them having sex, it moves from being consensual sex to a rape. That's horrible. That is a life altering event.

Yeah. That is awful. And the landing on the up note is complicated well it's not just an up note right because there's another thing that happens that i thought was really um ugly in a good way and is the movie committing to what i think is just kind of like a really nasty outlook and vibe which is like what is i think its strength and it's um when she goes into the office the next day and meets with eddie marzan and just again spoilers just like completely lies about their entire relationship and is like he has been stalking me and here's and i mean it obviously worked for me because that's straight out of like an adrian

line like 80s erotic thriller on its but spun around and it complicates her character um that was where i wanted the movie to end yeah now it doesn't give you that that moment of kind of like catharsis that i think some viewers will feel when she quote unquote wins at the end it's not like but i felt the same way i was like oh wow so she's she is the shark that we're used to seeing michael douglas play right and that she deserves to be identified as that shark and you i could feel the writer of the movie saying like you have to be a shark in these waters. Yeah. No matter what terrible thing has happened to you.

Ending it there. I mean, as you said, like the sex scene, like right before it turns to rape, like in the middle of it and you're watching it. And so that is, I mean, I guess that's like the true blue ugly version of that movie.

But I think I understand why you want to give her another moment that is not exactly like, you know, happy or sentimental. And the other thing I like about the ending is the way that it actually like mirrors the very first scene. But spins like the literal blood into something you know very different so i it worked for me i think it even though like as we're actually talking through what the ideological implications of it all are i'm like oh i don't know it's not it's like i don't i don't know do i have to I don't... I don't know. Do I have to agree? No.

Does the film have to have some sort of absolute moral lesson that I am like, this is what we want to teach our children or this is not what we want to teach our children? In fact, that is exactly what I'm trying to work against. I do not want that from my movies, honestly. I don't either. I want it to be much messier and more gray, which is why I like that scene with Eddie Marsand as well, in which she lies and reclaims that professional power

by trying to just shove him to the side, which is where he belongs. And that final sequence, I don't know. I bumped on it. Looking back, I regret not asking Chloe about it because I think she did something really cool. And I think she's a really interesting writer and thinker and she had a real command of tone for the first two-thirds of the movie that i thought was pretty interesting for a first-time

yeah feature filmmaker um but you know what she got us having this interesting conversation about the ending too so in that way it worked you know like that is really what i think is one of the the value adds of the movie i We can use this as a segue. I'm sorry to steal your job as the segue king. I have never claimed to want that role. You asked about whether this is an erotic thriller. And as we talk about the other two movies, which I think are more clearly not erotic thrillers. Well, I would argue the third one is well if it is then i think that fair play is

because they're both in conversation with the classic erotic thriller and they're updating them to me these are all three very clearly post me too movies yeah um and that is that is what unites them and they are about sex as um violence and sex as sex as a threat and how, and in the same ways that many of the erotic thrillers or the later erotic thrillers and all movies in the 90s were like post AIDS crisis, like sex will kill you. Then these movies are post me too. Sex is just something to be afraid of like in a different, in a different, but similar way. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that they are refashioned as the new erotic thrillers that have something probably more profound to say,

but maybe are not quite as entertaining in a disposable way. So they sort of demand conversation in some ways. The next film we'll talk about is The Royal Hotel. This is a movie that's in modest release right now that I think is going wider over the next couple of weeks. It's directed by Kitty Green, who directed 2019's The Assistant, a very, very good film about a young woman

who works for a Harvey Weinstein-esque character shot very closely from her perspective. It starred Julia Garner. She is also one of the stars of this movie, along with Jessica Henwick, Toby Wallace, and Hugo Weaving. It's based on a documentary called Hotel Cool Gardy that came out, I think, six or seven years ago. The documentary and this film are about two young women, in this case, American backpackers named Hannah and Liv, who take jobs at the Royal Hotel, which is an Australian outback bar run by a guy

named Billy, and they become disturbed by the male patrons of this bar. In the surrounding area, there is a mine, and the majority of the bar patrons are men, aggressive men, sometimes violent men, menacing men, for sure. This was one of the better movies I saw at a Telluride. I really liked it a lot. I thought it was an incredibly effective thriller that achieved a lot of the conversation points of what we're discussing, but never sacrificed entertaining me.

Yeah. And that's very difficult to do. So I like this quite a bit. This has the pitch perfect tone throughout the whole movie, and it really lands the plane and just like minute to minute, you both know, like, you know what you're supposed to be afraid of. And you also kind of like,

don't totally know what's coming or how you're going to wind up, you know, experiencing the, the bad things that are coming, but you know, bad things are coming throughout. Yes. Within 20 minutes,

you realize what the threat is. Yeah. And then you have to sit through an hour of the movie and be like, Oh, you realize what the threat is. Yeah. And then you have to sit through an hour of the movie and be like, oh my God, what the fuck is going to... And just ratcheting tension,

ratcheting tension. And sometimes it appears in places you don't expect. And sometimes... Exactly. In places you did expect. And it illustrates like all... And basically,

the basic threat is like, are these men going to rape one of these young women in the middle of the outback and the different ways that the threat can or the fears manifest itself and and like what becomes scary and i i thought was amazing and and just like and like a very nuanced but never like preachy representation of just all the little kind of questions you ask yourself as a young woman or, you know, really anyone who is afraid of sexual violence. And just kind of being like, oh, okay, like what about this? And I noticed this and this red flag went up and it like puts it all on screen in a really upsetting but subtle way. Yeah, there's a very clever decision that's made in the movie

where these two women come in because they're desperate and they need to make money. And they're on this kind of backpacking trip and they're running out of money. And so they have to get a job. And so they go to this agency and this is really the only job they have for them. And when they arrive,

there are two women already working at the bar who had been in a similar situation it appears two british women who are partying hard at the end of the movie and who appear to have sexual relationships with the bar patrons and who are not appear we see it we see it um they're really going for it uh in a way that clearly julia garner's character is not comfortable with but jessica henwick's character we see that there is a difference in their attitudes between these two women. And so that creates like kind of a natural tension too, where you see one character kind of moving in one direction and another moving in the other direction.

And their dynamic is also kind of critical to this movie. It's not a movie, frankly, about a woman alone being terrorized, which is something we've seen a million times. And it's just not as effective, honestly, in terms of trying to communicate anything beyond, gosh, it must be scary to be in a situation like this. You could certainly say at the beginning of this movie, like, hey, don't take this job.

This is a bad job. You should not do this job. It's like, what are you doing? Don't do this. There's a real, like, don't go into the basement horror movie aspect to this that you have to accept if you want to enjoy it. But if you accept its premise and the fact that it's based on a doc is fascinating.

I mean, was the employment agency like sued out of existence in real life? Because I was just like, listen, like we can, there's some liability issues that we can cut this off like right at minute 15. That woman just being like, it's all we got. You can't send these. No, come on. I agree. I think the movie is greatly helped too

by a kind of murderer's row of character actors that you've seen before or not seen before like Hugo Weaving as the dead drunk bar owner. You know, Toby Wallace,

I wanted to ask you about him. He's the young guy who shows interest in them. Right. Who he makes sort of a connection. Toby Wallace is, was I think the exciting find

of fall festival season. He appeared in this movie, Baby Teeth. He's an Australian actor three or four years ago, right at the beginning of COVID. And out of Baby Teeth, he was cast in this movie.

He was cast in The Bike Riders and he was just cast in Finest Kind, which is this Brian Helgeland movie that just played at TIFF that I just saw about a family in Boston with Ben ben foster and a bunch of other actors tommy lee jones and he's i thought he was amazing he was really good and i was i had real like oh wow movie star vibes from him and when you see him in the bike riders you may feel the same way yeah because he there's a lot of famous people in the bike riders and he kind of pulls the energy away from those people and into his corner he is the character who makes the like closest thing to

a connection that you can have with the julia garner character um and you understand why because he's just she is she is very closed off and she is very much like we need to get out of here throughout the whole thing but she is kind of like drawn in by uh whatever's going on with him while he also he's still a little not totally trustworthy yeah yeah he's got some issues um where you at on julia garner so she was clearly in like madonna get up for this because she was rumored to be playing Madonna in the Madonna biopic directed by Madonna. And there was like one photo released of her with like the, you know,

blonde ambition hair. And then she just kept it for Royal hotel, which I was just really amused at throughout the movie. She's only 29. Yeah, she's good. She has two Emmys already for Ozark. Oh, yeah. Do you watch Ozark?

I watched some of it. I did not complete the series. Everyone says it's good. I don't really have time for TV. Can I be honest with you about that? I really don't either. You know, we just talked about me driving to Santa Monica last night. There's just not enough time in the day.

Ozark seems great. CR loves it. I trust him. I love him. If you like stuff, I'm happy for you. I like Julia Garner quite a bit, though. And I'm not totally sold on her as Madonna, but I'm ready to be convinced. That's my take on it.

This movie doesn't have traditional sex scenes, but every time the idea of sex comes up, there's concern. There's anxiety. There's menace. It's almost like the idea of disrobing, like in a horror movie. Signals imminent doom. Now, it's not necessarily the case when push comes to shove in the movie, quite literally. But it is used as a tool to show us.

It is the great fear. Yes. Which I guess it is in like many horror movies, but as metaphor. And this is sort of like, it's not quite text, but. Yeah. That's part of the reason why I know you're not watching these movies, but that's part of the reason why I like the X, Pearl, and soon Maxine movies. Because they have that very much on the mind. The idea of like a woman who keeps having sex, but is not killed. And in fact, maybe killing. Right. And that kind much on the mind the idea of like a a woman who keeps having sex but is not killed and in fact maybe killing right um and that kind of flips the script on it

not the first time that's been done but it's done very well in those movies i really like the royal hotel i i hope i hope more people see it i think it's very 90 minutes yes very well made very sturdy and you know kitty green's background is is interesting she made that jean benet kind of like quasi documentary five or six years ago um and so i think casting jean benet kind of like quasi documentary five or six years ago um and so i think casting jean benet was the name of that film um and the assistant was slightly more experimental um in terms of the way the story was told this is more traditional this is more of a conventional thriller with big ideas when i saw the telluride at the end of it people were standing and clapping it was like a rapturous conclusion okay which I thought was really interesting and is uncommon at a lot of these festivals.

So worth checking out. Let's talk about Cat Person. Yeah, let's talk about it. Cat Person is the feature film that is based on the, was it 28, 2017 short story written by Kristen Rupinian, published in The New Yorker. End of 2017, December. So I understand why, you know, it's After Effects lived in 2008. Well, I've read it hundreds of times now.

So I've lost track of the years. This was, to my knowledge, the only viral short story in existence. It's interesting that we're talking about it this week after our discussion of the wonderful story of Henry Sugar. Yeah. I can't say I read this story and thought to myself, 120-minute film.

Well, that's the real problem, isn't it? It's so funny that we're doing this after the short story episode and after I just absolutely launched all my short story, you know, make it a feature, make it a novel takes, because this is a real example of you should not have made it a feature. You should not. Once it leaves the bounds of the short story, things just go incredibly wrong. I would say up until that point, I thought it was annoying and often inartful, but still at moments interesting. I completely agree with you.

The movie is directed by Susanna Fogel. It's adapted by Michelle Ashford. It stars Amelia Jones of CODA fame as the lead protagonist. Nicholas Braun, better known as Cousin Greg from Succession, as the young male suitor in the story. And then Geraldine Viswanathan has an expanded role from the short story as a kind of best friend character

who plays weirdly a critical role in the execution of the story. Listen. It's hard to make a movie. This movie is about a 20-year-old college sophomore named Margo who has a brief relationship with a guy named Robert that she meets while she's working in a movie theater. And their relationship then devolves pretty radically and things get violent and weird. And there's a couple of issues.

I agree with you that it is like a pretty, it's an adequate adaptation of the short story. A short story that I liked. I'm not afraid to afraid to say I enjoyed cat person yeah I thought it was interesting felt like a very relevant yeah representation of a lot of what was going on in the culture at the time in terms of the way that men and women communicate giving perspective on how many women feel in relationships that isn't necessarily always spotlit in our culture all those things that were obvious at the time and it's not necessarily a bad idea to try to capture what's done so well in rupinian story um i i don't think that there was a way to kind of satisfyingly conclude that short story in a feature no i i agree with you i mean this is the one thing where there are exceptions to my short story rule and this is i

mean this is about this is a short story about a sex scene you know and it is and sometimes you just gotta contain it to the thing itself and so what is illuminating about it is what's it illuminates about that those i don't know 10 to minutes, how much credit are we giving this person? But so to then expand it to two hours and to have to narrativize it past that one moment is counterproductive, you know, is the opposite of what the actual thing itself is achieving, which is examining one moment in time. Yeah, I think, I don't know,

I've never really been in a situation like this, but trying to figure out whether someone having a, because this short story is sort of like an incredibly sophisticated anecdote. Yeah. And like, could there have been like an anthology film of bad sex in which this was the primary film?

That would have been an interesting examination or something. And the different experiences. Seen through different perspectives or an older couple and a young woman and a queer couple. Even there, I think what is remarkable about Cat Person, the short story, and honestly, even a little bit like the sex scene in the movie, which was incredibly awkward to watch. Yeah. What is remarkable about Cat Person, the short story, is that it is like a specific evolved anecdote. But I do think many, many people read it. And even if they had not been in that exact situation, were like, oh, but I see something that I recognize.

Yes. And so that it is specific but universal is sort of the power. So if you're doing an anthology, then you have like four different things. And it's not, it's just a different vibe. There's two things bolted onto the movie. Three things technically that are not in the short story. It's just a different vibe. There's two things bolted onto the movie. Three things, technically, that are not in the short story. One is the expanded role of Margot's friend's character and what role she plays as the story with the Robert character evolves.

And also the subreddit that she moderates. Yeah, which I don't, you know. I mean, that's an issue with the movie is that it's a movie about sort of being online and texting and the kind of virtual life of relationships in 2023, which is, I think, worthy of representation in our storytelling, but is not a very cinematic style of making a movie. And I thought that the texting stuff was like, okay, but certainly not. It was like, it's genuinely dramatic in the short story where you're kind of like flying through that short story waiting to see how they communicate with each other doesn't have the same effect in the film the second thing that's added is this kind of like evolutionary biology thing with isabella rossellini's character where she's a professor and margo is studying biology and so we get all of this representation of like the female being the dominant species and the way

that you know insects interact with each other, which is just like metaphor heaped on top of metaphor that is just completely hat on a hat unnecessary. And then the third thing is this third act of the movie. Also, Isabella Rossellini just disappears. She does. She does. That part of the story, they just lose interest. And then the third act where the movie just goes haywire and it's like a kind of like a rape revenge thriller, you know? Not totally that.

That's not the right phraseology, but it's in that realm in terms of like what starts happening in the movie that I just really didn't think worked at all. That like I felt like I completely lost control.

No, I thought like ideologically it was confusing at best. And There were times where i was like is he in the right right which is like which is the which is the problem because i i mean here we'll just spoil it i guess because our i don't know whether people are going to go if you don't want to hear... A couple of minutes of spoiler. Spoiler warning. So after she runs into him in a bar after she's cut off contact,

and then he sends her a bunch of drunk, aggressive texts. And so she and her pal decide that they need to protect her. And that after what I thought was funny scene about trying to buy a knife or whatever at the store, I laughed. That was like the only time I laughed. Or like her friend's brother works selling weapons? Yeah, his name is Kelvin. Okay.

And I was just desperate for a laugh at that point. Love to have a brother who sells weapons though. I mean, come on. What are we doing? They buy trackers, and then she breaks into his house. Why is she breaking into his house? His garage, like, apply the tracker to the car. And they even talk about, like, is this breaking any laws?

And then he catches her in the garage, and then there's also a dog there. And then... He's, like, weirdly sympathetic during dog there and then he's like weirdly sympathetic for the first during that confrontation because he's like why'd you break into my fucking house and then he he she tries to mace him but he maces her and then he like holds her captive because he's like i can't let you go because then i'll get arrested because you got maced. And then they have like a conversation about like ghosting ethics and he's a nurse. And then she like tries to escape and then lights the house on fire. And then he like saves her by like keeping her in the like cellar.

So it is like, what? It's really bad. Yeah. Let's make sure to put that spoiler warning on bob okay i will i'll drop this the big picture spoiler warning special although that that just straight up sounded like mad libs i've not seen this film yet but it's indistinguishable from mad and then the geraldine bison bisonathan character like races to the scene of the fire to save her friend and like gets a lift with the guy who has been like on reddit in her women only reddit forum trying to like learn about feminism and they like make peace and then the house i don't know what movie that it's a whole other it's a mess and then they bike to like see the,

it's, and then they have to go to a pickleball. Like what? It's a mess. I, one other thing I'd like to say about this movie is just like Harrison Ford takes some really unnecessary shots. I thought about this.

This is actually an amazing pivot to the broader sexy discussion and the differences in generations. Because in this movie robert thinks harrison ford is the coolest guy ever and he wants his new paramour to also think that he is really hot and she's like he's okay he's old and she doesn't care about han solo and she mispronounces the character's name and i know know for you and for Mallory Rubin and so many of the wonderful women in their 30s here at The Ringer, Harrison Ford is a sexual icon. There is like one very, there is one scene in the addition to the film that I thought was actually good. So the protagonist works at a movie theater which seems like an awesome movie

theater by the way they're showing cool stuff and um she thinks that the nicholas braun character is like stalking her whatever so she calls the cops and um liza colanzias who you might know as tina from the bear shows up and takes a report and is like, you know, this is not, this is not a lead, you know, there have no crimes have been committed. And she just says like, you need to stop watching Homicide Hunters, which is like a great summation for the last 40 minutes of this movie.

And just like maybe a lesson that we all can take is that you need to stop watching Homicide Hunters. But in the background there's a poster for witness because the film the theater is showing witness and i was just like witness so that was there's there's a sexy new witness right i don't think he's he's shirtless and they're dancing in the barn to um sam cook and he's like singing and they're dancing but i don't think they actually have a metaphorical sexy yeah exactly but you know he's trying to respect the amish code yes there's a lot of like her like caring for him i don't think that they actually

have sex though okay you wish that there were more scenes in which har Ford can be seen having sex in films? Um, I don't, the suggestion is sort of enough. I get the suggestion a lot, right? In various films. Well, let's talk about that.

Yeah. So, I am interested in this, this delineation that has been happening. Um, I'm, I actually would like to hear, Bobby, your opinion.

Do you feel that your generational cohort, and you are being asked to be the representative right hear, Bobby, your opinion. Do you feel that your generational cohort, and you are being asked to be the representative right now, feel that sex scenes in movies are unnecessary, exploitative, gratuitous, etc.? No, not at all. Are you asking me about my generation, like young millennial cusps,

or like people five to ten years younger than me? Because I can't answer the question. I can't answer the question for the latter because i honestly don't know especially like being enveloped in this world where it's like artistic choice if it is executed well i'm open to whatever you're going to put in front of me and if it has meaningful creative intention then that is fine i do think that like this trend of anti-sex scene discourse is coming out of sex scenes that weren't executed with that level of intention and weren't executed with that level of mindfulness. Even for like the actors on the set. I think that it is like a backlash to that sort of trend. And now we have kind of swung so far in the other direction that we've kind of lost a little bit of the nuance of like a creatively fulfilled sex scene that is meaningful to the vision of the movie

yeah i i generally agree with that and i one of the reasons why i've been reluctant to talk about this is because it's a kind of a straw man argument i'm like i don't even really know who is out there saying like we need to remove all sex scenes it's always like a twitter account that's like at jojo bean and it's like an anime character as the avatar and you're like this isn't a real and they have like 19.7 000 Twitter followers you know I'm like what what is this account nevertheless it did eventually kind of bleed into the world where Penn Badgley who is the star of the show you had come forth and said he no longer wants to participate in sex scenes we've seen in Hollywood over the last 10 years like the intimacy coordinator become a much more vital role on sets

to Bobby's point you know you and I grew up at a time where sex was a not I don't want to say essential but a critical part of adult dramas about relationships and that

I think that there was a cynical reason for that which was that the prospect of an actress burying her breasts in a movie was like a commercial gambit um and also that there were a lot of movies being made about the anxieties of sex you know karina longworth's show has been doing an amazing job of kind of chronicling the 80s and 90s over the last couple of years so i recommend people check out you must remember This if you want to hear kind of individual examples. But the AIDS crisis, the evolving attitudes towards promiscuity in our country, safe sex, all these things that were kind of, you know, all happening from 1980 roughly to 2000, I think informed a lot of the movies that were made where sex was dangerous. It could be violent. And then there's also just always going to be an aspect of titillation that people want from sitting in a movie theater

or watching something at home. Things have changed, I think, pretty significantly in terms of how we view sex in movies, whether there is like a gratuitous nature to some of those sequences. But I would argue, I really want to know what you think about this, that in most of those erotic thrillers that we like,

that we had fun talking about during COVID, the sex scenes are really important to those movies. I mean, you know, like in Basic Instinct, the sex scenes are critical. It is in the text. Yeah. And also in Fatal Attraction, it is the text. And in Unfaithful, it is the text. So that to me feels like when you said like when you put sex scenes in here i started like

what are the sex scenes that come to mind and for me it's the adrian line movies unfaithful just because i was a little younger it was like very powerful and then the bathroom scene in particular you know stays with you and then out of sight which is less textual but also pretty important to what's going on and out of sight. Sure. And then The English Patient, which it is also like an essential part of the thing. So what all of those movies have in common are they're movies where a relation, like a romantic relationship between two people is essential to the plot or is a major part of the plot and i part of the problem might be that we just like don't make those anymore you know

and it's like whether it's a romantic comedy where there there is rarely sex actually um or an adult drama where it's people talking and then things get complicated and then maybe also like someone has some sex which complicates or resolves things you know like that doesn't work in marvel in the same way you know or in fast fast 10 and they tried doing a sex scene in the worst marvel movie to be released in in many years and it was yeah and it was pretty awkward. Yeah, I would argue, though, that that's because it didn't really pass the test that Bob is talking about. Right, which is like...

It wasn't sort of like meaningful to the execution of the story. Well, and I think it's like that is true that it's often not meaningful to the execution of a superhero story or a car racing story or... But it could be. Like, it doesn't...

Like, you don't... I think... It's... You're right if franchise entertainment like replaced a lot of this stuff so much of like studio movies now

are like the bar the barrier for like getting over it is the juice versus the squeeze you know and the squeeze in this case

being the fact that like people under a certain age can no longer come see our movies in theaters like this has to be an event where everybody could in theory come so that we can sell it

to the marketing team so that we can sell it to Wall Street so that five years from now people can say there's not a limited audience size for this movie. And that's just like the bar that scripts are being put up to the test for. So it's an excellent point, but here's the amazing counterpoint to that point. Oppenheimer. Now, Oppenheimer probably has the most watched sex scene in a movie in a decade because of how successful that film has been.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, except not by that lady on TikTok. Yes, that woman shielded her eyes. And in some foreign countries, those nude bodies were covered and those films were censored. But in America, at least, Oppenheimer has not one but two sex scenes. Yeah. And I mean, you can quibble with

their effectiveness right so I think you and I are pretty divided on that I thought they were laughable like I actually I did laugh are we sure that that wasn't part of the intent no we're the second one to me is the representation of like an adult mind you know and like two people who are who are yeah consumed by you know mistrust and and the breaking of loyalty in a relationship which is which is the second one that we're talking about like the interrogation room right visualization the visual yeah the first one is the i am uh i become death and florence pew astride killian murphy that's exactly how it happened that's historically accurate that's what i'm saying you know no one went into the text and he extracted florence pew's bare

breasts in front of killian murphy's face. Can I just say, that's like peak exception to the rule though. That's like Christopher Nolan, that's him making this big magnum opus, that's him being like, I am, you know, I'm the director.

I'm the auteur of this generation that can get anybody to come to the movies. No doubt. And you can't tell me to take stuff out. I'm definitely not arguing that point that he has

an exceptional status. But what I think is interesting is that if studios are saying we can't have sex scenes in movies and then everybody's like, I saw Oppenheimer three times. Fucking awesome. Right.

That tells us something about what the audience is and wants. And it doesn't need to be like, I have Pornhub over here and all my movies need to be like superheroes in shiny suits smiling and telling jokes to each other. That's insane. Let's be honest about what life is and what people want in the world and the way that they communicate it.

And I think in a way like that attitude obviously is just creating more weirdness in our culture where people think that sex becomes this inherently like conservative divide where people are like, that's for over here and that's private. Yeah. And that's not a part of the culture that we live in. Well, there's one other thing that we're not talking about here, which is sex on TV. Mm-hmm. And that 10 to 15 years ago,

I don't know, Game of Thrones debuted in what? 2008? I think it was after that. I want to say 2012. Okay, 2011. 2011. game of thrones debuted in 2011 and it is certainly not the first cable show to feature breasts for no it wasn't um my adolescence would like to say thank you to hbo right now like and then what true blood was like in the 2000s and people were just watching vampires have sex for no reason. Let's not underestimate

the power of Dream On, the series Dream On. Maybe before your time, a comedy starring Brian Benben and Wendy Malick. Yeah, we didn't have HBO in my house. Well, that's too bad for you. That's why I'm such a radical

sexual figure in this culture and you're still catching up. But yeah, so, and there was a time where it really did feel and and maybe this was documented or maybe this uh is just everyone theorizing that hbo was like how soon can we get the bare breasts on the show like how many minutes in so that people know that there is going to be sex in this show and this is like something that we are offering and so there's always and and that became like a way of making tv

for a while and then i do think specifically the game of thrones sunset scene and just a lot of like the violent sex on that show and how it was portrayed definitely inspired some of the conversations about like do we really need to see this and shouldn't we like be you know what what is narratively important and what is um gross and extra so but so but like but anyway just we became used to the idea of seeing sex on tv and like that was where you know know, on Sunday night, you know, you fired up Californication or whatever. Yeah, we certainly did.

You know, and your movies. Did you watch Californication? No, but I just know he fucks a lot in it. I'm super interested in you sitting alone in a room watching Californication. That's one of the funniest images in the world to me.

Do you know who does though? So my friend Katie, you know my friend Katie. I don't think she's listening to this, but Katie just was, like, really keeping me up to date on all of the sexy shows on TV. Okay.

She is just, she's an expert on all of them. What, like, right now? Well, right now, they just had a kid, so I don't know whether she's, like, up to date on that. Okay.

But, yeah, in general like you know katie knows katie knew when the canyons was coming out you know like katie's on it fucking hell yeah schrader the god of sex yeah he was like gear drop trowel please american gigolo i mean the tv show that i thought of from this year is the idol that's the show that featured explicit portrayals of sex that featured you know, a kind of truly bearing it all performance from Lily-Rose Depp. Right. That went even beyond the typical, like,

woman on top of a man kind of stuff that we're used to seeing, but like into BDSM, into like a much more... Oh, right. We forgot about Fifty Shades. Fifty Shades of Grey? Yeah.

But like the thing that that show has in common with Fifty Shades of Grey, that I think it has in common, even with Game of Thrones and like Sopranos and other shows that featured a lot of sex, is that most of the time, those were critical story decisions in those series. That's true. Fifty Shades of Grey in particular, I mean, it is very much about the sex. Yes.

And I think that that's true of the three movies that we talked about here too, where you basically can't tell the stories of these movies without the sex scenes and so no they are the story right

and so I guess like we're arguing against a kind of invisible figure here because the fact is that Hollywood is making movies like this they are making TV shows that feature these things

there is not a rejection of these things in the culture I guess the idol was rejected for other reasons but you know there are other examples. Like, I think one of the most

acclaimed movies of the year is Passages. Yeah. That we both really liked that features not just explicit sex, but I think sex filmed in a way

that we're not used to seeing. Like, the way that Iris X shoots, like, Franz Rogowski from behind and you see, like, the male body in a way that you're not used to seeing in a sex scene.

It's not that typical, like, soft lighting and Vaseline on the lens. Right a way that you're not used to seeing in a sex scene. It's not that typical like soft lighting and Vaseline on the lens. Right, exactly. And like, oh, it's like a steamy Shannon Tweed Cinemax movie. It looks like two animals fucking, you know, in a good way. Like that's what he's trying to say is that there's something primal about that character who's so chaotic.

It's a wonderful movie. People haven't seen it. I think it's streaming on Movie right now. And Adele Xartopoulos is in it, which is wonderful for me. And like, it's a tool. Like that movie, passages can't exist without its sex.

It's the whole, in many ways, it's the purpose of the film is to show the way that humans are these kind of voracious, emotional figures. I would say passages, and this is even a complicated

statement, but the three movies that we were talking about, sex is certainly dangerous, if in a slightly different way than it was dangerous in the 90s when we were having it, but it's like

it's not shown for enjoyment, basically at all except for the very first scene of fair play yes and even that has a kind of yeah a kind of like careful you wish for quality to it and then and passages i mean things get complicated which is like what's amazing about it but like those those people are having sex because sex is something to be enjoyed and to have some sort of connection with someone whether or not it's the like you know right connections but it is interesting how when sex is being used narratively now it is a lot it we we are back to like this is this is bad and people who have sex are gonna

gonna be maybe not in trouble but it's almost something you want to avoid well that's definitely true in bow is afraid yeah where the the film is sort of all leading up to a sex scene right and and this is a case where the sex scene is funny. There's not a lot of funny sex scenes out there in the world right now. That is very true. And I would like to shout out Parker Posey's Fearlessness for her performance in that movie. It was so good.

And it's a really great scene that is, I would argue again, critical to the story of a deeply repressed, jammed up dude. Right. You know, who just needs to get it out. And sometimes that's what a movie can be about, you know? But it's not like in Oppenheimer. It's like, oh, great. Like, he had sex and now he has like a, you know,

meaningful like relationship with this person. It is like Oppenheimer or it is not? It's not like that is true in Oppenheimer. Like, he's literally like, I true in Oppenheimer. No, it's not. He's literally like, I am become death while ejaculating. It is the perfect metaphor

for sex as death. I mean, I love it. It's like all that sperm had to die, you know? Yeah, but he does have a meaningful relationship with that character though because she changes his life.

She's part of the reason that his whole life comes devolved because he goes back to see her because he loves her. And that's part of more of like Christopher Nolan's woman problem,

which is like anytime you let a lady into your life, like it's just really absolutely going to fall apart. But I think that that complicates his legacy around that, which is that it's actually him who is the, he's the problematic figure. He's the person who is disloyal to his wife, who sleeps with multiple women, who treats women poorly.

And that is kind of his undoing in many ways, too. You know, that her, that Jean's death in that film, her, you know. Yes, totally. Totally. That unnerves him and shows him what a bad person he is. Yeah, totally. But if we're talking about sex, the lessons there is still like sex is bad and desire will undo you.

It's true. And now you're dead. It's true. There is a kind of Catholic approach to that in that film. Bo is Afraid to me is the opposite. Yeah. Bo is Afraid is like, do not let yourself,

don't repress. Because if you repress, you will live in a world of terror and anxiety and awful things will happen to you and you will go on a spirit quest and be destroyed by your own children. I feel like sex is great. Like at the movies.

At the movies. That's what I meant. Sex at the movies is great. I just never wished that I had the Tony Reale mute button. Yeah. More than right now. I'm talking about your pro.

More than right now. Representation in film. I think things are fine in this respect. I don't think that there's like a crisis. When I was first thinking of this, I was like, is there a crisis?

And then I started thinking about what we saw this year and what is being greenlit to Bobby's point. I do think that there is an inherent conservatism, small C conservatism, in quote unquote

most mainstream IP. But that's no surprise. And frankly, that can change. That can change. Like in comic books, that actually did change. I don't know whether I want it to change. You may not.

I don't think it's really going to matter because I think comic books are fucking dead. Comic books or comic book movies? Comic book movies. They're dead as disco, man. They're dead as a doornail. Like it is crazy. No one cares

loki season two who cares that's the marvels what's coming after the marvels aquaman yeah aquaman 2 aquaman and the lost kingdom i will see that for patrick wilson i do like patrick wilson wow speaking of sex scenes that's right little children there we go critical to that film yeah Just make more movies about sex. That's where I am. Make fewer movies about superheroes and more movies about sex. Okay. That's my prescription for Hollywood. Bob, what do you think Gen Z is thinking right now listening to this pod? Are you convinced that there is anybody from Gen Z listening? Yeah. I know for a fact, brother. First of all, I want to shout out all the construction site

workers who DM'd me or tweeted at me about how they were listening on the site yesterday. Fucking A, man. That is amazing. Awesome. And does anyone

have a truck that they can drive by my house? Are you prepared to give out your address right now? Maybe on like an individual basis,

though, but like, I don't, I don't know if you're like really up to date on how dialed in nox is on on construction i'm ready on trans and transportation let's get i mean you've got you've got a long road ahead of you here no no i know but it is like you know he doesn't know my name but he knows car truck bus airplane you, airplane, you know, like, well, I'll send you, I'll pass along some of our friends who are listening on the sites. We have Gen Z listeners. I know it for a fact.

I've gotten lovely notes from college students and I'm like, I can't believe you listen to this. I've met some of our Gen Z listeners. I think our Gen Z listeners are who are listening right now. Think that what you guys said makes a lot of sense. Thanks so much, Bobby. Thanks, Bob. Appreciate that.

I think that most of our Gen Z listeners can put the sex scene in movies in context because they have like other examples from movie history that aren't just like, like this is not the first time that they've considered the idea that sex can be represented on screen. So, you know, we did a whole erotic thrillers episode. That was wild. to be represented on screen so you know we did a whole erotic thrillers episode that was that was like in deep covid and my husband would just like come into the room and like was like do you mind if you would just like turn down the volume on this just like very loud gasping and moaning going the other way turn it up turn it it was like 2 p.m. on a Thursday and he's like,

I'm trying to do some work. No. Wild Things? Let's run it back. Let's watch it every night. Then he was like, ooh, Wild Things. I sat down.

I almost, there's a sale with Arrow, which is the Blu-ray distribution company. Sure. The Wild Things is available for 4K for $30 during this sale.

Do you think I should buy it? I don't own Wild Things. Why not? Have you regretted buying a Blu-ray before? Were you ever like, I couldn't eat today because I spent $30 on a Blu-ray instead? I never have, but I know that I will in the exact final second before I die. In that last second, I'm going to be like, why did I buy all this plastic? What the fuck was wrong with me?

That's just an inevitability. That's the awfulness of my life. Yeah, but that's not going to hinge on whether or not you buy wild things. It's true. That's just an inevitability. That's the awfulness of my life. Yeah, but that's not going to hinge on whether or not you buy wild things. It's true. That's true. So I should purchase it is what you're saying.

Go with God. I say lean further into your idiosyncrasies. You know, that's what's going to make for good podcasting. I love the generosity of that question. I don't know if it's generous.

I was asking on behalf of everyone else. It's like every day I wake up and I'm just like, what can we do to help Sean find happiness for like two minutes so the rest of us can know peace, you know? Is it going to make you happy like the $238 Sofia Coppola mug is going to make Amanda happy when we get it for her for Christmas this year?

That will make me happy literally every day. And as she said, if you give it to me, I will think of you the way that she thinks of her friends as she uses it every day. In my professional life, I haven't been this happy in a long time. Or excuse me, in my personal life, I haven't been this happy in a long time. No, I know that is really true. In my professional life. It's the same as always.

You know. Yeah, but. The coin is in the air. Yeah. And it's been flipping for several years. You know what I was thinking about though the other day was like, because now mostly when I see you outside of work, it's like with our children. And so we have, we have like maybe

10 seconds at a time to talk before someone like jumps off a table. Yes. If people are wondering why the show's gotten weird the last couple of years, it's because this is

when we get to hang out. Exactly. This is like, this is when we get to talk. So I would love it if you could be a little bit happier in the bounds

of these conversations. Well, this is just the essential mix that we've pursued, you know, and I don't intend to change it anytime soon, but I love doing the show with you guys, as you know. Thanks, Sean. It's probably time to be right. Oh, thank you.

Bob, you're great. We'll thank you at the end of this pod. Sean, what are we doing this weekend? Thank you. We're going to Carved. No, okay. Well, we are going to Carved. No, you want to tease it right now.

I just looked at the schedule. This is amazing. This is great. Okay, so Friday night, that's what we're doing. And then... Carved at Descanso Gardens in Los Angeles. Yeah, which is like one of those Halloween-like festivals. Have you done Carved before?

Didn't I do it with you? No, we went with Phoebe last year. Yeah, we did Enchanted, which is the holiday-themed. But this is Halloween. I haven't been to Carved. It's got a lot of hay bales. Okay. Did you even say what you're going to see? Yeah, but that'schanted, which is the holiday themed, but this is Halloween. I haven't been to Carved. It's a lot of hay bales. Okay. Did you even say what you're going to see?

Yeah, but that's Friday and then Saturday. Saturday afternoon during nap time. What are we doing? We are going to see Taylor Swift, the Heiress Tour movie. The film is two hours and 40 minutes. I have to think about my outfit. Until this moment, I haven't given it any thought i think i'm gonna wear the um the borat bathing suit okay that i think that would be wonderful now you actually do

need to listen to the original version of all too well before we go i simply do yes you do so that you can understand my you've misunderstood okay i I have to go into this not having listened to any of this stuff. Okay. But what I promise to do is I will listen to it afterwards. Afterwards. Okay.

Okay. Does that make sense? Sean, a really important question. How are you feeling about your absolute number one dude, Paul Schrader, coming out and

feverish support of Taylor Swift? One, that article was written in 2018. So I have no idea what people are talking about. That was a recycled piece of content in in attempt to grab attention anew to paul schrader said don't let the aggregators get this that's right he didn't say that um two uh loving a man's work does not mean i want to valorize all of his opinions and frankly paul schrader has said

far worse things a really good thing to make clear in relation to Paul Schrader. Paul Schrader said many things that I have no clue what the hell he's on about. Taylor Swift could be among them. We'll find out on Saturday when we see the film together, which I greatly look forward to doing with you. If I were doing it by myself, it might have been a tough day. I might spend like north of $80 on concessionsions i might just be like yeah i need the fucking what's the amc like bavarian super pretzel yeah like 30 pretzel i might rock one of those uh i'm gonna get a slushie wow i'm gonna get a hot dog i'm gonna get i can get over 80 bucks i think okay what do you think i'm i will do a lot of candy maybe maybe. Okay, okay. All right, let's have fun.

I'm also seeing Taylor Swift, The Heiress Tour on the same day as you guys, obviously not in Los Angeles, in New York. Do you want to give me an assignment for something that I should be particularly looking for in my theater just to confirm? I think we just want to know the vibe. Yeah, demographics,

whether you get a friendship bracelet. Yeah, it seems important. I hope I do. What plays well, what doesn't play well yeah yeah i look forward to your report bob and uh i can't say i look forward to my saturday but um i'm looking forward to seeing you again thanks amanda thanks sean let's go to my conversation now with chloe domont Happy to be joined by Chloe Delmont. Congratulations on your debut feature, Chloe.

Thank you so much. How are you feeling? Are you excited? Yeah, no, I'm really excited. You know, we've done a couple screenings at festivals, but I'm just really excited to actually put it out there to the world and, you know, see what kind of conversations and debates kind of come out of the film. I'm always interested when a filmmaker debuts a film at Sundance

and then they have to live months and months and months before the rest of the world can see it. What has that been like where it's like, the film was celebrated out of the festival, big acquisition, Netflix, great story. And then just wait eight months. Uh, yeah, that, that dip is, is, is definitely, it's strange. Cause then it was like, yeah, just like a lull. And then we're now picking up again. And then, and now it's, uh, you know, it's like this huge lull, but now we're going 150 miles per hour. Okay. Well, welcome to the hurricane. I, you know, I know that you have directed a lot of episodic television, but I don't really know how you got into the business,

how you got interested in making films. Like, can you just give me maybe a little snapshot of how you started doing this? Sure. I mean, I, I've always, I've been a cinephile. My father was a cinephile, so I grew up watching movies with him. He's the one who really introduced me to cinema and showed me some of my favorite movies when I was like 10, like Network. I mean, it's still my favorite movie of all time. So, yeah, I mean, that was kind of where my love and excitement for it came. And then I started writing just at a really young age and started writing poetry and one-act plays and short stories and then gravitated towards film. And then I went to film school. I went to NYU. I went to Tisch, which was awesome, a super hands-on program. I think a lot of other film schools, you kind of sit in film theory and analysis for like the first two years without like making anything. But, you know, NYU,

they throw a camera at you within the first two weeks. They're like, figure it out. So yeah, that's kind of how I started. And I feel like I just really found my voice in those early years. And then it was more about after school teaching myself how to write because I think while you learn a lot of technical stuff in film school and you're inspired by a lot of things you're watching and by the students you're with, they don't really teach you how to write, I would say. I think you've got to teach yourself that.

So I think after school was kind of putting myself through grad school and kind of really honing that. And then also you're trying to figure out how to make money and eat and-level commercials that weren't paying very much, but were paying just enough to be able to, you know, get to the next day. And then at a certain point, I kind of pivoted to TV as a way to try and, you know, make things more sustainable financially. And I started shadowing this director, Julian Farino, who directed a lot of HBO shows. So he took me under his wing and he really brought me in. And he's the one, him and Steven Levinson gave me my first opportunity on Ballers directing on that show. And that's how I kind of got my leg up in the TV. In the back of your mind, were you always thinking, I'm trying to get to a

place where I can direct my own scripts? Yeah. I mean, my goal has always been to tell my own stories, to make my own movies, you know, and, and, um, but I think, you know, I, I, uh, I was going, I kind of, you know, pivoted to, to television, um, first for financial reasons, but then, you know, it was a great way to work in different genres, to develop different skills, to kind of hone the craft. And I'm so grateful for those experiences because it taught me how to become a professional. And I made a lot of mistakes early on so that by the time I got to my film and my own story, I was just way more prepared. The charting the course for a first-time filmmaker seems significantly different. I had somebody in here just this week who was a music

video director, and then they directed their first feature, which is a much more, if you are a fan of filmmakers from the 90s, that was very common, but that feels way less common now. Does TV feel like the clearest entryway at this point? I would say no. I think it's still a pretty much, I feel like I kind of went at it backwards. I feel like, especially the NYU mentality and then what they kind of, you know, teach you, the NYU path is usually you make a short film, you know, you hope that it gets into one of the five, you know, big festivals. Then you write a feature version of that short film. Then you hope it gets in the Sundance labs and hopes that you know you make it for like model exactly yeah or you just try and make it for like you know a few hundred thousand dollars you know uh wherever you can get

the money and then and then so you go the indie route first and then people I feel eventually gravitate towards tv because they need to pay their bills and Right, right. You know, but I did it backwards, which was I need to pay my bills first. And then, but all the while I was still searching for, I wasn't ready to write my movie. I hadn't found my story yet. And I think that it took life experience to finally realize that this is the story I need to tell.

I was going to ask you that. Did you have a lot of, you know, drawer scripts where there are a lot of ideas that you were like, I'm going to, this is going to be it. And then it didn't work or you tried to sell it and you couldn't get someone to pay attention to it. I was, yeah, I've, I've been writing like every day since I was like 18. I've just, um, trying to search for that story, especially coming out of film school. You're like, you know, everyone comes out of film school being like, all right, I'm going to write my script now and I'm going to get it financed and whatever. And yeah, I was writing a lot of different stories and I just, I didn't think they were good enough

or I just didn't think they were timely enough or I didn't, I just felt like I could do better. And, you know, and so I just kept, I just kept searching and trying, trying new stories and exploring new stuff. But I think while—and, you know, it was a very painful time, to be honest, because it's like I knew I could do better. I knew I could, you know, find something that was just—had more teeth or whatever it was. It's just like I knew in my gut that, like, yeah, those scripts were good, but they just—you know, in my gut, I just didn't feel like it just didn't punch hard enough. And I just really wanted to come out swinging with my first movie. And so I just kept searching. And in the meantime, while I was searching, life happened.

And then at a certain point, it just became obvious that this was the story I needed to tell. So why this story? You don't work in the world of high finance yeah so yeah why fair why did how did fair play become the right film um i think because for me it was this feeling i was having at the time when my career started to take off and you know in television and really actually before that with like commercials and and um and but it was this feeling that i was having where you know uh me being big on some level made the men i was with feel small and um it was never anything that was spoken about it was just felt in some way and and some relationships were more subtle some relationships these experiences

were and dynamics were more explicit um but it always felt present in some way. And I found myself undermining my excitement when I got jobs or when I had opportunities or undermining, you know, my ambition for bigger things because I didn't want to make them feel bad about themselves. And I think after a while, you know, I just started to realize how much power these ingrained dynamics still have over us, you know, even today, even in progressive cities, even with progressive men. And that, you know, at a certain point of kind of experiencing this over and over again and in different shades, I just, it became a story that I that, um, I just, it was burning inside of me at that point. I'm like, this is something I'm, I feel like now I'm onto something, you know? And, uh, and so I finally

sat down to, to, to write it and, um, and, uh, just wanted to, to push it as far as it can go. Did you workshop different potential environments that these two characters could be living and working inside of? Or was it always clear that New York in finance? I think that I didn't workshop too many environments, I think. But what I did do, I definitely mapped out the relationship drama first, like the beats of like, you know, the idea that a woman, whatever job they're in, a woman gets it instead of her male partner and that power flip, you know, then the relationship starts to implode. So I knew that

that was the story I wanted to tell. And then I was like, okay, how exactly could it implode? And just mapping out the beats and, you know, I'm kind of seeing how psychotic it could get, you know, was exciting to me. And once I had that, you know, a good grasp on that, then I was looking for a backdrop. And I wanted to set it in some kind of work environment that was an office. I just felt like it was more relatable for more people. You know, my experience in this, I didn't, yes, this comes from a personal place, you know, but I wouldn't want to set it in film and TV. I just think that that's boring. I wanted new territory to explore.

And I just felt like the high, you know, finance, it came to me rather quickly because I guess I've always been drawn to high stakes work environments. And I had a bunch of friends in that world. And I actually felt like their experience in that world was actually quite parallel to my experience in film and television. So I just landed on that. And I was just like, I'm just going to explore this and see what happens, you know, and maybe I'll have to switch

at some point, but let me just try. We just did an episode on this show about dumb money and the movies about the world of finance, you know, and that there is a tradition,

especially in the last 20 years, kind of post-08 of like, and it's frankly a lot of angry men yelling at each other in rooms, right? That's kind of the dynamic of films. And this is, of course, you know, a woman at the center of the story, which is highly unusual. Not unusual in the world of finance, but in this particular role.

Did you have to train yourself in this world? Did the actors have to like learn about how this all works? Or was it okay for there to just be more of a gloss on how the world of finance works for the film to kind of work um i'll say for me you know to write it yeah like i definitely i was studying that world like i was you know um like i was learning and it felt like learning a new language like learning spanish or italian or something so um i but honestly i felt like that was more like the easy part was was learning the logistics you know and the lingo of it i felt like the hard part was definitely more mapping out the drama of the film and how the conflict escalates. all that stuff, I think that was pretty easy and quick to understand. And I did that by bringing

on some consultants, you know, on the film who were in that space and just hearing how they spoke and them just taking me through their days and then talking about, you know, different tensions that, you know, an analyst has with their manager and then what sort of, you know, conflicts, you know, kind of can occur, do occur. And so once I had a good grasp on that, then I took a pass at writing it, and then I would share it with them. They'd give me notes on authenticity.

And then in terms of with the actors, they definitely had questions and wanted to understand more. Alden definitely wanted to understand, really feel like he wanted a full picture of it and just to color like everything. So I put him in touch with those consultants and he would have like phone sessions with them where he would just ask them questions and understand more. And same with Phoebe.

Phoebe ended up, you know, getting in touch with those guys and they really helped just fill in some blanks for them you mentioned that figuring out the kind of dramatic arc and beats was more challenging one of the things i really like about the movie is that it feels um like it's always going into an unsafe place like a place where you don't want the characters to go or they do something and you're like oh my god that's very upsetting that i just watched that happen to them yeah um that feels novel i don't know why it feels novel. Maybe it's just because there aren't a lot of dramas that are like this nowadays.

But maybe can you talk about landing on how far is too far in a character piece like this? How do you make sure that the audience stays with you? That's something that doesn't get too melodramatic or overblown when you're figuring out the shape of the story. Yeah, totally. out the shape of the story yeah totally um it's uh you know i've always believed that a character's emotional need drives the plot so for me it was that was how i always kept myself in check so putting myself in the character's shoes and being like you know as luke um this this job is his whole self-worth right and? And if he doesn't get this job, it means that he is, you know,

he's not the person he set out to be. He's not the man he set out to be. And so he puts all of his, you know, value on this thing. So, you know, putting myself in that position, you know, and someone, and I can relate to that, you know, as someone who has wanted this from an early age

and also as an American, you know, we're so work obsessed. It's very millennial. Very millennial. To be that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To define yourself by the work that you're doing. Yeah. And like what you achieve, like, you know, even on a daily basis, what you achieve can just affect like your mood, everything.

And so I just personally related to that and i could i could tap into what that is like you know and if you don't achieve that you know what what that does to you so um and then i just i just kind of amp it up so it was just like it um yeah and and and so it was always through the lens of like how far is this character willing to go how far would i go in this character shoes you know and then and would I go in this character's shoes? And then just pushing it just a little bit more for the sake of entertainment, for the sake of taking a little bit of a risk.

But I still think like, I don't know, I like films that are a little bit heightened, because I do feel like life is a bit absurd at times, and we as people are a little bit, you know, heightened, you know, because I do feel like life is a bit absurd, you know, at times. And we as people are a bit absurd and we push too far and we push ourselves to the brink and we push each other to the brink. And so, but basically keeping myself in check was always going back to that question of like reminding myself, what does he want?

You know, what is he after? And does this track with some like a character um who is just uh who needs to get this at all costs you know but still grounding it you know within the realm of reality it's contextualized the movie a lot by hearing that network is your favorite movie like it does kind of reorient the way that you look at some of the dramatic dynamic of the movie i think the the other thing, too, that I really like about it is it's not a binary film. It's not this person is evil and this person is good. There's obviously inherent flaws in both of the characters. Someone comes out more on top than someone else in many ways.

But I wonder when you're pitching a movie like this. Yeah. I know producers and studios, they have an expectation of something that is clear, that has like a kind of clear moral boundaries. And this movie really kind of operates outside of those things. So did you get pushback on the way that you were kind of characterizing some of the figures in the movie or where it ends up? No, I think I was really lucky. I found producers and financiers that just, they got it. They got it, and they understood my vision for it,

and I came in really confident. I came in very clear about what I was trying to achieve, and they were just ready to run with it. But it was, yeah, I mean, and I said, it would be so boring to make a film that's black and white, you know? And it's just like, it's just, yeah, I mean, that's not, I feel like that's just taking away the humanity out of it. Or, you know, in some ways it's just, no, I mean, in general with this film, but all films, I'm interested in exploring provocative shades of gray, you know? And I've always said, like, Emily, she's not a hero, she's a human, you know? And I've always said like, Emily, she, she's not a hero.

She's a human, you know, she's messy and she's ugly at times because what she's ambitious and what, you know, she, she wants what she wants and, and, and she wants to get her piece of the pie, you know, but what I did kind of want to show with her behavior more is that how women are forced to play ugly to kind of make their way up in that world and survive with those kinds of men. In terms of getting the movie made, was it just the right people read it? Did you have to pitch around? What is the process of saying, I have an original idea. I'm a first-time filmmaker. Please give me money. Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel very grateful. I had an incredible team at UTA. My agents, they're just ninjas and they just knew who to send it to. Like they knew who would get it. So they knew the, you know, the kinds of producers that would just gravitate toward this material that would bite on it, that would pitching a whole bunch of people. Like they were, it was very targeted. Um, and they really helped me navigate, you know, um, uh, who, who to send it to. So it, it, I have to say it happened pretty quickly, which was, you know, I think unusual. And, and again,

I feel, I feel grateful and I feel lucky for that. But, um, yeah, I mean, they, they sent it to the right producers who were just like ready to help me, you know, go and get this thing cast. And then once it was cast, then, you know, we went to financiers. And honestly, it was like, you know, my agent sent it to Bri Adler at MRC and he read it within a day. He said, don't send it to anyone else. I want to meet with her tomorrow. And I was actually directing on Billions at the time. And so I shot like a whole day. I shot like 10 hours. And I was like, well, I guess I'm going to go pitch my movie now. So I shot 10 hours. I went home. I pounded like, you know, two espressos

and I pitched my movie to him. And they agreed to finance it that night. That's pretty amazing. Unusual. Unusual. How close is the movie, the script at that stage to what ended up on the screen? Pretty close. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was pretty close.

I really worked on the script for a long time, and I took my time with it, because I really believe it has to be on the page. And, yeah, I mean, so, but I was, you know, I was rewriting it as we were rehearsing it, you know, and obviously when you bring actors on, you bring a DP on, you know, things change. So I was constantly like rewriting the script, you know, all throughout shooting as we're finding more exciting things and lines that just work better or blocking, you know, or discovering things together. So, yeah, it was a constant state of rewriting it. But I will say that, you know, yeah, what we ended up, what I ended up, you know, the final shooting script was pretty close to what we have in the edit. I'm really curious how you landed on Phoebe and Alden.

I am not a Bridgerton viewer, so I had never seen Phoebe before. And so that, in a way I think helped my experience with the film and I also really like Alden's work but he has just not been as visible the last few years and he's kind of having a bit of a comeback right now and so that also helped where it was sort of like a film like this is usually seen through

his character's perspective and not knowing her very well this is just my personal bias but it's part of what contributed I think to the success of the movie for me um how did how did they become your actors sure um i also hadn't seen bridgerton um i think when you're you know uh the casting process you kind of get especially in this age range you get like the same kind of 15 names of established actors that are of value right and i i said to my producers i'm like you know the character of emily is a rising star in her world who is a rising star out there that's

not on this list that's going to be on this list in six months you know and and it has some buzz off of something you know and um and so phoebe's name came to me because she had just, you know, done Bridgerton. And, and, um, so I watched, um, I watched the pilot and I just, uh, I was totally drawn to her. I think she's, she's someone that you can't take your eyes off of. Um, and, uh, what was really important to me is some of the qualities she had, which I thought was important in the role of Emily is, uh, I wanted to cast someone who, you know, is both warm and vulnerable and loving, but also fierce and fearless. And, you know, what drives me just nuts in the way that I think a lot of women are depicted,

especially ambitious women in film and TV for the most part, it's either like, you know, you're sweet and loving or you're a cutthroat ambitious career woman you know and it's like the idea that a cutthroat you know um ambitious career woman can't be warm and loving and all those things it's just like uh it's just annoying frankly so uh and not human and not you know so i feel like for me it was important to show that emily is all these things and and all these you know, all these sides. And Phoebe just had that to the nines. I'm curious how you feel about the erotic thriller discourse.

The movie, before I saw it, was kind of characterized that way. That's what I was expecting. I wouldn't say it follows the standard expectations of what we came to understand in the 90s. But it's it's not not one either yeah how comfortable do you feel with it being defined that way um so i mean look i think like it's uh the film definitely has some crossovers to the erotic thriller genre i think the film has some crossovers to psychological thriller genre i think it has crossovers just to a relationship drama you know um? But me personally, I didn't set out to make an erotic thriller. What I set out to make was

a thriller about power dynamics, you know? And I just feel like our job as new filmmakers is to break from traditions and, you know, conventions of traditional genres, to twist genres, to manipulate them, to abuse them, to serve as stories that we need to tell now. So that's what I, you know, intended to do. I wanted to slowly and subtly lean into the genre at times to shine a light on, you know, the dangers of male inferiority, to show all the ways in which women are forced to play ugly, you know, to survive. And I just ultimately think that it's not really a film that you can put a label on or particularly, you know, define.

But, yeah. So the movie is going to obviously spark some conversation when the whatever hundreds of millions of Netflix users get a chance to see it. Obviously, it was created in part to drive some of that conversation. It's a great, like, see the movie, then go to dinner kind of a movie, especially for complicated married relationships. But I'm wondering, like, how much you will participate in observing that in public.

Like, do you want to see what people have to say about it? Or because it's something you worked so hard on, it is so long time coming, it will be hard to see people's reactions to something? Because it's going to provoke some strong reactions, I think. No, I'm, I'm, I'm ready to break people up. Like, let's go. Like, let's, let's, let's go. Like, that's what I'm here for. Like, you know, um, I, uh, no, I'm, I'm here to provoke a little bit. And, and I think that this, this again, you know, like what drove me to writing it is the fact that this is something that's not talked about and we don't know how to talk about it. And, and, and I think now more than,

you know, in the climate, I think we're more afraid to talk about anything and that's more of a problem. So I'm hoping that, you know, I leave, you know, the audience asking certain questions and ideally some of the same questions that drove me to writing this film in the first place, which is like, how can we dismantle the link between female empowerment and male fragility you know how can we demystify the role that men are raised into thinking they're supposed to fill um you know how can women learn to embrace their successes without fearing that you know it'll hurt them on some level and how can we love and trust one another in a world that's so dependent on these kind of ingrained dynamics that get in the way of that?

At the risk of psychoanalyzing you, where do you think that the desire to confront like that comes from? I, you know, I mean, I was raised by pretty intense personalities. I feel like growing up with my parents, everyone was always shouting opinions and provoking for fun, but also for thought and debate. And I just grew up that way where, yeah, it was always a house where uh like that that's uh yeah I think and it was exciting and my parents were just uh they were incredibly eccentric um strong personalities that that um that just may yeah that just uh I don't know yeah so I mean I think it definitely starts from that but uh but also it's you know, for me as a filmmaker, it's like I want to,

I want to make movies that I'm starving to see. And I feel like the films that I like to watch and are thirsty for are films that, you know, take you on a ride, that explore provocative shades of gray, that keep you on the edge of your seat, that go to dark places but are still entertaining, you know, and shocking and mortifying, you know. But ultimately, at the end of that ride, it needs to hold up a mirror, you know, a mirror that you might not want to look into. Do you know what you're doing next?

I'm, yeah, I mean, I'm going to continue to tell my own stories and make my own movies. So that's what I'm set on doing. And yeah, I know the next film and, you know, my head's kind of, you know, just thinking about that, but obviously waiting for the strike to be over so that, you know, we can actually get to work and do it. asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen can be a new movie or an old movie or anything really if it was a tiktok video it can be that if you really want it to be i hope it's not but if it is no it's definitely not going to be a tiktok video trust me i'm barely on social i'm like just starting to get on instagram and it's like you know i'm a little bit anxious that was kind of informing my question about will you look at what people have to say because i think it's just gonna be a lot of tweets about the movie i think it's something you should prepare for yeah um okay let me think about that for a quick second um i think i mean yeah i was just i i kind of i've just been kind of well i'd

say the girl with the dragon tattoo but fincher's version uh i re-watch that movie all the time i just i fucking love it i just think she's like, she's one of the greatest female characters in the thriller genre and I can't take my eyes off her. And Fincher is just a master of tension and I love the filmmaking of that movie and it's fun and it's scary and yeah, I just, I can't get enough of that movie. When you were describing making the movies that you want to see and what you're looking to do, I was thinking of Fincher. So that's an apt response.

Chloe, congratulations on Fair Play. Thanks for doing the show. No, thank you so much for having me. Thanks to Chloe. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode, which is about sex. And he has very carefully edited any sequences in which I have said something that is inappropriate. Next week, Amanda and I,

we will be seeing Taylor Swift, The Heirs Tour. We're going to talk about it. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to be honest. I bet you are. At my own peril. And we'll see you then.