Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers

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From vampire noir to Bin Laden, Point Break to Detroit, the first woman to win an Oscar for best director has never pulled her punches Watching new Jeff Nichols release The Bikeriders , starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as 60s Chicago greasers, I was reminded of two other movies: László Benedek’s 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One , explicitly cited as an inspiration, and The Loveless , the 1981 feature debut of Kathryn Bigelow , the American film-maker (b.1951) who would go on to become the first woman to win a best director Oscar with her 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker . A symphony of leather-clad posing (with just a touch of Kenneth Anger ), The Loveless was a staple of the late-night circuit in the 80s, often on a double bill with David Lynch’s Eraserhead . Sharing directing credits with Monty Montgomery, Bigelow playfully deconstructed masculinity and machismo in a manner that was one part wry to two parts relish. I remember seeing The Loveless at the Phoenix in East
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Fair Play review – knockout thriller pits a couple against each other

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Sundance film festival: Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich give top-tier performances in a juicy crowd-pleaser about a couple competing at the same workplace

In the first scene of the punchy Sundance thriller Fair Play, a New York couple, Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (the Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor), are covered in blood. They’re at his brother’s wedding and are so desperately in heat for one another that they soon find themselves in the bathroom, him performing oral sex before group photos are taken. But Emily is on her period and between cleaning themselves off and laughing at the unfortunate timing, a ring falls out of Luke’s pocket and suddenly they’re engaged. A marriage forged in blood.

It’s no real spoiler to say that it’s a nasty omen of what’s to come, the writer-director Chloe Domont’s ruthless, and ruthlessly entertaining, feature debut taking a happy young couple and throwing them into chaos. There’s something darkly gratifying about that formula, one we haven’t seen as much of recently but that dominated the 80s and 90s. While there’s a definite throwback vibe to Fair Play, Domont isn’t interested in merely repeating what’s come before.

Fair Play premiered at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution

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