Rebecca (Margaret Qualley), a lawyer from Lichter – Haynes, LLP, arrives at a luxurious hotel suite to interview Hal Porterfield (Christopher Abbott) and produce a report for Porterfield Hotels & Resports’ board of directors to assess his eligibility as the company’s next CEO.

The interview begins with basic questions like birthday, social security number, height, weight, and so on. As time passes, the queries become more inappropriately intimate and bizarre. Then it reveals that it is in fact a part of a role-playing game in which Rebecca is dominatrix performing a script written by Hal.

The role-playing game advances to the next stage. Hal removes his shirt and pants, and he begins to scrub the dirt behind the toilet as Rebecca commands. She continues to verbally humiliate him, which fulfills his sexual desire.

Hal gives Rebecca a $32k Audemars Piguet watch as a farewell gift for her long and secret relationship with him all these years. He worries that his relationship with her will be socially unacceptable, when he takes over as CEO after his father’s passing.

Rebecca refuses to leave since she is aware that he owns 112 hotels with market capitalization of 185 million dollars. She believes she’s entitled to half of CEO remuneration for the first year. She threatens to release his private video which she secretly recorded with a camera hidden in his suite to the public, if he doesn’t agree with her terms.

But how can he be certain she isn’t bluffing? And how do we know if they were acting or if their words were true? The audience may get the impression that something is a bit off, however, it’s difficult to specify exactly what it is.

The strange vibes between Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott keep us engaged throughout their rough night, speculating on who would win this fight as control shifts back and forth. The revelation comes at the final moments where everything falls into place in this wickedly dark comedy.

Although their final scene appears to be too easy, it’s almost too good to be true. Perhaps I want it to conclude on a much darker note. We simply don’t know how Rebecca and Hall think of one another; they may believe they know each other’s dark secrets, but do they trust each other with their lives? We’ll probably never know.

SANCTUARY premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (tiff) on September 11, 2022. It had a limited theatrical release in USA on May 19, 2023 by Neon.