The Assistant
Rated R. 87 minutes
Written/Directed by Kitty Green
Starring Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins, Stephanye Dussud ,Julian Canfield
A Spotlight film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, The Assistant is Kitty Green’s first non-documentary feature.
Synopsis: A searing look at a day in the life of an assistant to a powerful executive. As Jane follows her daily routine, she grows increasingly aware of the insidious abuse that threatens every aspect of her position.
I hadn’t heard much about this film directly heading into Sundance, but somehow there was some buzz around The Assistant that peaked my interest. Also, as an aside, I just realized Kitty Green also directed the strangely effective/mildly disturbing Casting JonBenet documentary from a couple years ago, also at Sundance.
At 2019’s Sundance Film Festival, I saw the Harvey Weinstein documentary, Untouchable (review HERE), and while I had some problems with the execution of that piece, I found it—as most did—to be a disturbing look at the film business generally, and Weinstein’s business, specifically.
So imagine my delight (?) at finding a film like The Assistant this year, which dramatizes what a day in the life might be like in an environment like that.
Let me start by saying the goings on in the office of the unnamed executive in The Assistant are typical of what most people might honestly think of when they try to construct an environment like this in their heads.
And therein lies the rub; everyone can conceptualize a place where a young woman—here Jane (Garner)—is the low assistant on the totem pole, seniority-wise, and the only woman (there are two men who work with her outside The Boss’ office). We see her engaged in a variety of run of the mill office tasks, such as making copies, making coffee, washing dishes in the breakroom, taking calls….
But then, what can only be referred to as the insidiousness of her day begins to reveal itself. I’ll skip the first item for a moment, and move on to the more… mundane… issues.
Jane preps food and drinks for the conference room meetings.
Jane washes the dishes (even those left by other, more senior, female employees, while she is washing dishes.
One of her male coworkers forces her to deal with the Boss’ angry wife over the phone. When she asks “why?” he simply gives her a look that bleeds “Because you’re a woman.”
Jane is made to deal with a new “assistant,” an attractive young woman from Idaho the Boss hired personally, without experience, and who gets put up at a very nice hotel on the company’s dime (escorted by Jane).
After a conference with the Boss is aborted as he is not in the office (but at the hotel, as all the male executives theorize), her stammering report to HR results in an examination of her career choices and aspirations instead of any possible… indiscretions… happening in the office.
Finally, getting back to my previous, delayed point, Jane’s first task of the day (after arriving at a sickeningly early hour to perform a great many of those more run of the mill tasks, she “cleans” the Boss’ office: including scrubbing a section of the office couch cushion.
As if that wasn’t enough of a clue, a later comment by the executives at the cancelled meeting about never sitting on the couch should tell you all you need to know.
And Jane knows it, but after all of it, she is beaten down, into submission, not only by the system (and the aforementioned HR visit), but by the unexpected encouragement of her supportive parents, excited by her career opportunities.
Insidious.
To my eye, The Assistant is a great companion piece to Untouchable, presenting in a dramatic way the POV of a “bystander” to the somewhat clinical nature of the reports about Weinstein’s behavior.
My Grade: A