Sanctuary is listed as drama/thriller. It's actually a romantic comedy with the set up of a horror movie - a man tries to fire his dominatrix, she's big mad. It's very old fashioned, a will they or won't they plot with an underlying endorsement of true love. Soul mates exist and your soul mate is the person with whom you can be most authentic. The tension comes from Qualley, the hooker with a not so golden heart, and Abbot, the wealthy business submissive, trying to work out whether their time together is where they become their true selves or just the needful. A job for her, a stress relief valve for him. The departure from tradition is that the characters are allowed to be non-idealized. Qualley's control is always shaky and Abbot is not so pathetic that his only option is killing her. Their threats are hollow. This puts the focus on the impasse in their relationship, and the movie manages to whip up a genuine desire to see some kind of resolution.

This is basically post-irony come to romance. A kind of reverse Pleasantville. Instead taking a stock movie and making it twisted, the movie is fundamentally perverted but the characters normie aspects constantly intrude.

Thumbs up.