A Assistente

It's impressive how this movie is so low key and just shows what is likely a very ordinary day for the protagonist, yet still remains interesting and unnerving to watch. Entertaining might not be the best word to describe it, but neither is boring. It maintains a sense of quiet discomfort throughout, and the apathy of a toxic workplace and predatory behaviour of the higher-ups is explored extremely well with this stripped down, non-heightened approach.

I was glad I knew it was subdued and grounded before going in, as if I'd expected more, I may have spent all 80-something minutes of its runtime waiting for the "plot" to start happening.

Despite it being quiet and low key, it's also definitely not subtle. It's pretty clear what (or arguably even who) the movie is about, and I guess the very dry, quiet presentation with the strong and far from subdued intentions of the film did make for an odd but usually interesting contrast.

Also worth mentioning is that Julia Garner was great in the lead role, but the rest of the cast are mostly just decent.

Following on from the Harvey Weinstien scandal and other instances of sexual abuse and harrassment by the rich and powerful I'm sure movies like "The Assistant" are going to become more common place but I doubt if many of them will be this strange, this unsettling or indeed this good. Although fiction, "The Assistant" looks and feels like it could be a documentary and Kitty Green, whose first feature this is, does indeed come from a documentary background.

The assistant of the title, (a beautifully subdued Julia Garner), is a young woman employed in the New York office of a media mogul, not just as a kind of secretary, but as someone to clean up, (literally), the mess (literally), that her boss leaves behind and to take whatever verbal abuse he dishes out. She is safe, it would seem, from sexual harrasment because, as she's told, 'she's not his type'. The boss himself is never seen on screen.

This is a genuinely frightening film that goes beyond what has come to be known as the #MeToo Movement. It paints a horrifying picture of what powerful people can do to subordinates given the chance, (I know because I too worked with such people but I, at least, had the balls to stand up to them...and not get fired). What distinguishes Green's film is that she never over-dramatizes, (if anything, she holds back almost to the point of boredom), uses actors who are not well-known to us, (a magnificently obsequious Matthew Macfadyen is the best known person on screen), and films it, not as a clammy thriller, but as a fly-on-the-wall slice of life. There is none of the triumphalism of "Bombshell" on display here, just the chilly feeling that an unseen monster is lurking out of camera shot and destroying the lives of everyone around him.

Let's just say, that whoever did this, has experience when it comes to the life of an assistant. There is nothing fancy here and the ticks and tocks are subtle and not in your face. The life of an Assistant is not glamouros (in realityt that is and in the way it is depicted here) - this could easily be a documentary then.

So your patience is being tested in a way, one would say. The movie is interesting to some then and annoying to boring to others. Be aware to which group you belong and act accordingly (watch or don't that is)

"It's not my place to question your decisions. I'm grateful for the continued opportunity." Jane (Julia Gardner) to her boss (Tony Torn)

Jane is a recent college grad who has taken a new job in the city with a media-related firm that has her as an assistant who fears more will be asked of her than the usual go-fer tasks. The above quote just about summarizes her abasement after Boss discovers Jane has complained to HR about his seemingly-predatory practices with young aspirants.

Writer-director Kitty Green has perceptively caught in The Assistant what we all suspected from the Harvey-Weinstein debacle-the sexism and sexual harassment that seem almost a part of a low-level young woman's job description. Plain Jane is constantly on camera, frequently in closeups and peering around the office finding stains on the couch she must clean and compromising conversations she must overhear. These shots do nothing to make her appealing other than to mark her as a good girl caught in compromising situations.

With little affect, Jane is the willing subordinate who might compromise herself should Boss advance on her but who probably is free of the harassment because she is "not his type." So says the HR officer, who listens to her concerns about her boss's predations with new or potential hires.

This scene should be seen by anyone who wants a feel for the imbalances in Weinstein-like worlds, where HR just might tell what you complained about to the Boss and co-workers, and where the fear that she might be fired if she complains keeps her from formally complaining. Jane must be complicit by not complaining or she will lose her precious job. Green makes a compelling case for the gloomy perspective through scenes that demean the protagonist and the office crew.

The Assistant has a Seinfeld theme of being about nothing but really everything. The rumbles are underneath the surface and almost undetectable, so the surface seems cool and accommodating. Yet, looking at Jane's bland face and seeing her capitulate to power and advancement makes on want to certify every minute Harvey stays behind bars.

I can see why some viewers don't like this movie, there is no action, essentially no background music until the very end, and the focus is squarely on this young assistant who has been in the job for 5 weeks after graduating from a good college. Her ambition is to work her way into being a Producer.

Julia Garner, a New Yorker herself, is age-appropriate, was probably about 24 during filming, she is simply Jane. She calls home periodically, her parents tell her to get enough sleep, she is very diligent and professional, she gets to the office before daybreak and is often the last to leave. She gets sandwiches, makes copies, arranges flights and hotels, her work keeps the offices running. There is no frivolity.

Her awakening to the reality of things is when she goes in to make an anonymous concern, that sexual shenanigans might be going on even with the big boss, an unqualified girl from Idaho is hired and put up at a hotel, and basically finds out her job is to mind her own business if she wanted to keep her job.

It is easy to think this was inspired by Harvey Weinstein and his office, and maybe it was, but enough has come to light over the past few years to realize this is closer to the norm than it is to the exception. The story is less about the big boss taking advantage of pretty young girls, it is more about the culture and the widespread acceptance within the office that this is the norm. But one worker told her "Don't worry, you're not his type."

The story covers one long day but it gets its point across. Garner is superb in her role as Jane but we get no clue what might eventually happen for her. My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. When it ended she asked "It's over?"