Netflix's 'Fair Play' Movie Ending Explained: Director Explains Why Phoebe Dynevor's Emily Did THAT in Final Scene

The new movie Fair Play has been #1 on Netflix after debuting over the weekend and director Chloe Domont is now providing some insight into that shocking ending.

In Fair Play, an unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple’s relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement.

Bridgerton actress Phoebe Dynevor plays Emily, whose secret relationship with her co-worker Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) begins to turn sour after she receives the promotion at work that he expected to get.

Keep reading to find out more (including lots of spoilers)…

SPOILER ALERT – Do not continue reading if you don’t want to know what happens in the end!

Luke becomes erratic and enraged by Emily’s power over him at work and he hits a boiling point one day at work while she’s in the middle of an important meeting with clients. He wanders into the room and reveals to everyone that he’s sleeping with Emily, accusing her of sexual harassment as she’s his boss.

The couple’s engagement party is later that night and they have a very public breakup in front of their friends and family, which leads to Emily being raped by Luke in the bathroom. When Emily arrives home the next day, Luke has his belongings packed up and reveals that he’s moving to San Francisco. She confronts him and tells him that he should be apologizing for what he did and begging for forgiveness. The scene turns violent when Emily grabs a knife and forces Luke to get on his knees and beg for that forgiveness. She even slices his arm when he doesn’t immediately comply.

After Luke sobs to Emily and begs for the forgiveness, she whispers to him, “Now wipe the blood off my floor, and get out. I’m done with you now.” The movie ends with Emily dropping the knife on the floor.

Director Chloe Domont told Netflix’s Tudum, “While there are elements of female rage, the last scene is not about female revenge, it’s about holding a man accountable and getting him to face his own inferiority. Luke’s inability to own up to that causes both of them so much pain and so much destruction. For me, the whole film really builds up to the moment when Emily finally gets Luke to acknowledge his own failure and his own weakness, when he finally mutters the words ‘I’m nothing’ — because more than being a film about female empowerment, this is really a film about male fragility.”

So, how do Emily and Luke move forward?

“I think that’s the last time Emily ever involves herself with a man like that,” Chloe said. “The knife drop for me is a real mic drop — she’s done, she’s over it. She’s going to continue to focus on her career without walking on eggshells, and she’s going to see the red flags before diving headfirst with someone else again.”

She added, “I think that if Emily had just let him walk out that door without that kind of confrontation, he would have continued to fail upwards, believing his own narrative about how he was wronged and deprived of what he ‘deserved.’ By forcing him to acknowledge the brutality he inflicted on her, as well as face his own failures on a deep emotional level, my hope is that he would actually learn from that and he would, at the very least, do better next time.”

Watch the steamy trailer for the film!