Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sanctuary’ on Hulu, An Exemplary and Electrifying Erotic Thriller

We used to be a proper country. Even in a decade as pious as the ‘80s, America still churned out tense erotic thrillers that spoke to the tensions in gender politics. Sanctuary (now streaming on Hulu) carries on the tradition proudly and makes a convincing case that we should make them a much bigger part of our media diet once again.

SANCTUARY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The dominatrix Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) shows up to work at a hotel room for a standard, scripted night of degradation with Hal (Christopher Abbott). We gradually learn that he’s the scion of the hotel’s owner on his way to inheriting the company … and a repeat customer of Rebecca’s. She serves as more than just a source of sexual satisfaction, functioning in capacities as his therapist and executive coach as well.

But with his ascension within the company imminent, Hal decides it’s time to cut off their relations. What Rebecca hears, however, is the start of negotiations. She claims she’s entitled to half his salary given the way her work has elevated his own. Given her intimate knowledge of his sexual fetishes, Rebecca is not afraid to extort to extract value so she can maintain some grip on the power she has access to by proxy.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This represents the happy median between Pretty Woman and Fifty Shades of Grey. Kinkier than the former, cleverer than the latter.

Performance Worth Watching: This is an evenly matched two-hander, as it must be to sell the power dynamics that can shift within a single scene. Christopher Abbott is sensational, but it’s Margaret Qualley who owns Sanctuary. Her dominatrix is playing a much trickier game, and Qualley’s steeliness is a perfect complement to her character’s shiftiness.

Memorable Dialogue: “I need to match up my insides with my outside,” Hal tells Rebecca. “A person who WINS.” The line is stealthily a summation of how the characters’ drama mirrors the film’s evolution where tension begins as submerged psychodrama only to emerge as outright competition.

Sex and Skin: You’ve come to the right place! This is an erotic thriller that isn’t afraid to get STEAMY. Nothing too explicit, but you’ll feel the sensuality — or the threat of it — infecting every frame of this story about two people bound by their carnal cravings.

Our Take: The intimacy of Sanctuary — two actors, one set, one night — might signal some of the boring trappings of filmed theater or COVID-era productions. It’s anything but. Zachary Wigon’s film, working off a tight and taut script by Micah Bloomberg, finds resonant drama and suspense on a microcosmic scale without reducing Rebecca and Hal to mere stand-ins for their gender or class. These are fully realized characters brought to life by Qualley and Abbott’s committed performances and sizzling chemistry. Because they feel specific and real, we can then understand something real and resonant about contemporary power dynamics between men and women. This handy two-hander provides a reminder that, when done well, the erotic thriller can serve as a Rohrschach blot of society by laying bare the sexual tensions undergirding everyday interactions.

Our Call: STREAM IT! Sanctuary makes clear the thin line separating negotiations in the boardroom and the bedroom as parties jockey for power in a cutthroat economy. This twisted, tense battle of wits and wills is captivating from the first frame to its emphatic last line. They don’t make many movies like this one anymore, but Qualley, Abbott, and Wigon make a persuasive case that they should.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.