Fair Play

Anna is a young Czechoslovak sprinter who hopes to qualify for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. She lives in a modest flat with her mother Irena, herself a former athlete, who has been reduced to cleaning buildings due to her dissident sympathies. Anna is expected to unquestioningly follow the instructions of her coaches at the National Sports Center. But when they start prescribing new steroid injections, Anna rebels, and the coach pressures Irena to keep her daughter on the drugs. Meanwhile, government operatives are trying to force Irena to confess to collaborating with a dissident, insinuating her daughter’s future is at stake. FAIR PLAY captures the controlled fury and incomparable sadness of a woman who gives up her principles, hoping her daughter might escape to a better life. Anna Geislerová and Judit Bárdos are convincing as the mother and daughter who stick together through harsh circumstances, each subversive in her own way. (In Czech with subtitles) – B.B.