It's hard to get more "inside baseball"
than The Assistant. It's a movie about the assistant to a movie
executive (more than a little based on Harvey Weinstein). It covers a single
day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner). She's the first person in the office,
very early in the morning, and one of the last people out. Her job is
everything from answering the phones to cleaning up to setting up schedules, making
copies, babysitting in a pinch, doing the dishes, ordering lunch, and handling
deliveries. I'll go ahead and say one of my small gripes about the movie is how
much it packs into a single day. Then again, that possibly reflects that actual
amount that a studio assistant does. Throughout the day, Jane gets repeated
examples that something isn't proper with her boss. She finds women's jewelry
on the ground. Other execs make jokes about sitting on the couch. A young woman
shows who is being hired as an "assistant"...just as soon as she
signs a lot of legal documents first.
If I had to assign this to a genre, I'd call it a
"how you boil a frog" movie. The challenge of the movie seems to be
explaining how good - or at least decent - people could let the "casting
couch" activities (and worse) go on for so long. They either make jokes
about it or convince themselves that it's mutually beneficial to both parties.
There's an especially disheartening scene when Jane goes to HR and realizes the
degree of difficulty substantiating a complaint; not to mention the horror of
realizing that HR isn't as confidential as she believed.
Beyond that though, this movie captures the small
indignities in the life of an assistant in this situation well. I'd be shocked
if this wasn't written by someone who spent some time in this role. It's too
specific to just be passively observed. Julia Garner is tremendous in a very
quiet performance. She doesn't say much throughout, and when she does, she uses
as few words as possible. She does a great job making a bunch of mundane tasks
captivating to watch.
There are a few other familiar faces throughout.
Matthew Macfadyen plays the pitch perfect HR manager. Kristine Froseth from Looking
For Alaska is well-cast as the new "assistant". Jon Orsini and
Noah Robbins are quite good as a couple coworkers who are far more used to the
rythms of the office. Robbins in particular offers a glimpse into the nascent
form of the type of exec Jane's boss becomes. An interesting choice is that
they never actually show her boss. You occasionally hear him, but that's it.
Another detail that struck me was how it handled
phone calls. It doesn't sound adjust to make sure you can hear the other end of
the call. If anyone in the theater is making any noise, you can't hear what the
other person is saying at all. This is intentional, but in a situation where
the person next to you is eating popcorn a little loudly, it could be very
irritating. This might need to be a subtitle movie for home viewing.
I find it odd that this movie premiered at
Telluride, because it has a very Sundance feel to it, given the small budget,
level of stars in the cast, and small scope of the story. I often refer to
Sundance movies having more of a short story feel. The Assistant doesn't
fill 90 minutes and still has a lot of down time. I'm always happy to watch a
short movie, but this feels more padded than edited down. The very specific
topic and somewhat dry presentation makes this a hard movie to sell to general
audiences, but I really liked it for what it was. Julia Garner alone is worth
seeing it for. She's inching closer and closer to a major breakout*. It also
does a great job setting the scenario that has allowed the Harvey Weinsteins of
the world to get away with things for so long.
*Some would argue that her Emmy nominated work on Ozark was already her breakout, but I'm talking
about a next-level breakout: Oscar, franchise, and/or leading role.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
