She regroups and resumes but the questions just get tougher. Hal gives up, exploding over the breaches. Rebecca pushes back and gives him a humiliating task which he does in apparent relief. Frequent glimpses of the script reveal that even these breaches are scripted. While he is down on the bathroom floor, cleaning around the toilet she joins him on the floor, assuaging him with platitudes. Later, when they enjoying some very spiffy post-session nosh and a martini each, Hal wistfully says he'll miss these appointments. She asks what he means. Well, he's going to be a CEO. He can't be known as a Sub if he wants to be a hardarse business leader. Rebecca is not pleased. She is not pleased initially from the surprise of it and increasingly from a sense of betrayal and callous use. Her displeasure balloons in the plus hotel room and takes on new facets and characters until Hal has to manage some push back of his own.
From this point more plot reveals would only turn into spoilers. This high energy two hander of dominance and struggle, of business intimate to corporate, takes dizzying turn after turn, revealing weakness in the dom and strength in the sub whose intellect and deluxe articulation make for a sharp and compelling ninety-six minutes. Despite the lushness of the setting, this premise of a constantly shifting dialogue is under continual threat of collapse, point and counterpoint can get exhausting rapidly and twists will need to be ironclad if they are to pass an audience on high alert.
There are lags in the middle, expectable in this setup but the reason that it regathers strength again and again to the solidly wonderful finale goes beyond the writing, already accomplished and muscular. It's all about a pair of performers who are made for their roles. Christopher Abbott, though young, is a veteran of difficult parts in films like Piercing and Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor in which he plays a man hosting a cybernetic puppeteer, cowering into himself or bursting out with the fury of an assassin grown too fond of her work (it's a complicated piece). Hal lets him do something very similar as he variously breaks his role in the professional relationship but must at times retreat hastily to the shell of the submissive. His vocal work alone, whether in howling pain or fury, might be enough but the interplay is also intensely physical.
That's where counterpart Margaret Qualley comes in. Andie McDowell's daughter, Qualley might get nailed up as a nepo kid but for some impressive stripes earned in things like the weirdo apocalypse series Leftovers. Luminously beautiful, she shows a tough readiness to subvert expectations and come out growling with force. Alternatively, she sculpts lines hard with threat in a gentle croon. Also, she brings her dancing training to the role with some impressive movement. Her character's professional insistence on a contact-free liaison is kept through the wildest pas de deux. If it breaks we know it's serious.
I could see audiences falling away at some points where the writer wants to introduce a complication that he has not earned. This happens more than once and can overpower the best that the performers can muster but some patience will reward the viewer when the pieces of the extraordinary final moments fall into place and feel as though they had been falling from the opening. Is this a BDSM rom com or a message of gloom for the future of business? You could really take it either way but to do that you will need to keep with it and suffer a little. That is in line with Rebecca's profession and Hal's kink and maybe, our own lives which might be simmering under masks of such invention. Try it out for yourself.
Viewing notes: Because of its short run at Nova I had to miss this at the cinema during October as it doesn't qualify as horror. I found it for rent on Prime (at post-cinema run prices so it won't break the bank). Also available on Apple TV and Google Movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment