The Assistant
Directed by: Kitty Green
Written by: Kitty Green
Starring: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins, Makenzie Leigh
Drama - 85 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 5 Feb 2020
Written by: Kitty Green
Starring: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins, Makenzie Leigh
Drama - 85 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 5 Feb 2020
Jane’s mundane existence as the lowest of the low film production executive assistants appears mind-numbing. She is the first in; therefore, she turns on the lights, makes the coffee, prints out the weekend grosses, and wait - did she just wipe up cum from her boss’s rug? She organizes travel plans, ensures the hotel is ready, the driver is booked - wait, did she just schedule an escort? Jane fosters a strong ambition, she wants to be a movie producer. Her foot is in the door. It’s menial, but plenty of success stories begin in the mail room. So, why rock the boat? Why call attention to the entrenched system of verbal and psychological abuse which defines the office atmosphere? The Assistant stares at a recent college grad’s first real-world moral dilemma - what will you do when your black and white ethics lessons confront the gray areas of the behavior of powerful men and the inevitability of personal consequences should you challenge the system.
Writer/director Kitty Green exposes the culture revealed by the 2017 #metoo movement. The never seen, but always felt, executive is meant to be Harvey Weinstein, but it is a composite character of all the power-hungry predators who prey on the most vulnerable. Jane (Julia Garner, Grandma) is not a specific hand-raiser who came forward to share her story, but is also an amalgamation of dozens of stories whose owners all share details in common. Some may balk at the pace, but the deliberate, slow momentum of a day in the life of Jane is the ebb and flow the material requires to convey the habitual blindsiding indignities which befall her. Out of nowhere discoveries and abrupt phone calls from the man himself puncture Jane’s hypnotic toil. She writes humiliating apologies and promises never to let her benefactor down again as if it is her fault the boss’s legion of infidelities finally catch the attention of his wife.
Writer/director Kitty Green exposes the culture revealed by the 2017 #metoo movement. The never seen, but always felt, executive is meant to be Harvey Weinstein, but it is a composite character of all the power-hungry predators who prey on the most vulnerable. Jane (Julia Garner, Grandma) is not a specific hand-raiser who came forward to share her story, but is also an amalgamation of dozens of stories whose owners all share details in common. Some may balk at the pace, but the deliberate, slow momentum of a day in the life of Jane is the ebb and flow the material requires to convey the habitual blindsiding indignities which befall her. Out of nowhere discoveries and abrupt phone calls from the man himself puncture Jane’s hypnotic toil. She writes humiliating apologies and promises never to let her benefactor down again as if it is her fault the boss’s legion of infidelities finally catch the attention of his wife.
Cinematographer Michael Latham’s God’s-eye-view overhead shots showing Jane washing lunch dishes, unpacking water bottles, and fishing used hypodermic needles out of the trash are a novel approach to what could be a monotonous chore observing someone execute office odd jobs. When Jane delivers sour news to other execs about unexpected travel plans, the camera glides horizontally on tracks through the office. Latham knows 75% of the story is watching someone do chores; his efforts to spice it up bear fruit and add a sense of complicit omniscience to our voyeurism.
Most of the office workers and appointments do not even see Jane. Impossibly gorgeous wanna-be actresses employ her as a coat rack before their closed-door examinations with the man who will decide whether or not they will be Hollywood’s next bombshell. Green never lets us peek inside the office when the door is shut, but imagining John Lithgow as Roger Ailes prodding Margot Robbie to lift her skirt up is probably one of the more benign escapades going on. Jane most likely wishes she heard one of the assistant’s jokes earlier when he warns, “Never sit on the couch.” Doing a summary memory search of everything she has paper-toweled and unsoiled off of that high mileage furniture item shows up as poisonous nausea on her face.
Jane thought she was going to help one of the movie industry’s most successful shaman create A-list films. Yet, to her shame, and something she will never tell her parents who are so proud of her, is that she is a wallflower witness. She has no answer when the wife calls screaming, “Tell me where he is and who he’s with!” When Jane musters the courage to explain the situation to the Human Resources Chief, the man responsible for office behavior, he paints her as the problem. What proof do you have? Are you jealous of these other girls? He has 400 other resumés from more-qualified applicants for her job alone. He then pushes the tissue box toward her in the most practiced of manners.
Jane learns something all of us pick up on the fly if we don’t already know it coming out of school. One’s magnitude and latitude are directly proportional to the power you can wield. For longer than most will admit, those with the ability to make and break in Hollywood operated apart from moral boundaries immune to the consequences associated with crossing them. They were protected. Maligned women in Jane’s position went a long way in that protection racket - hence the pained expression on her face. Will she sacrifice her future to scream the truth or join the long line of enablers to shield the boss as he commits ever more egregious insults against humanity? The Assistant is brave filmmaking. It is cold and stoic to look at. Everyone hides their true feelings and most dialogue is left unsaid. Well, perhaps the most pertinent advice was already shared, “Don’t sit on the couch.”
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