☆☆☆
For a movie that has moments of caustic anger and even brutality, The Assistant is awfully restrained. At first, it seems a fitting response, like a quiet, reserved victim who isn't sure about speaking out. But as this brief film unfolds slowly, its restraint becomes less intriguing and more confounding.
Its quiet nature is sometimes a plus, but in the end writer-director Kitty Green's film is so glum and numb that it loses potency – even while, oddly, it manages to disturb and distress.
The movie takes place on one long, dark, winter day as Jane, the assistant to a powerful New York film producer clearly modeled on Harvey Weinstein, goes about her thankless, abusive job. She's played by Julia Garner, whose character seems (unintentionally?) destined to be a victim. She's so oddly timid that it's hard to see how she was chosen for the job by such an abrasive, abusive human, (never shown but impressively voiced by Jay O. Sanders). As the day wears on, Jane withstands the behavior, then becomes overwhelmed by it, and finally tolerates it, but The Assistant offers no real perspective on why.
It is, to be sure, a finely detailed observation, and an unnervingly accurate portrayal of the entertainment industry, which seems so incapable of handling the #MeToo movement or its ugly nature. But to what end? That's uncertain, which is both the problem and, maybe, the point -- The Assistant merely watches and instead of passing judgment on what it sees, just shakes its head sadly.
Viewed Feb. 7, 2020 -- Arclight Sherman Oaks
2010
Its quiet nature is sometimes a plus, but in the end writer-director Kitty Green's film is so glum and numb that it loses potency – even while, oddly, it manages to disturb and distress.
The movie takes place on one long, dark, winter day as Jane, the assistant to a powerful New York film producer clearly modeled on Harvey Weinstein, goes about her thankless, abusive job. She's played by Julia Garner, whose character seems (unintentionally?) destined to be a victim. She's so oddly timid that it's hard to see how she was chosen for the job by such an abrasive, abusive human, (never shown but impressively voiced by Jay O. Sanders). As the day wears on, Jane withstands the behavior, then becomes overwhelmed by it, and finally tolerates it, but The Assistant offers no real perspective on why.
It is, to be sure, a finely detailed observation, and an unnervingly accurate portrayal of the entertainment industry, which seems so incapable of handling the #MeToo movement or its ugly nature. But to what end? That's uncertain, which is both the problem and, maybe, the point -- The Assistant merely watches and instead of passing judgment on what it sees, just shakes its head sadly.
Viewed Feb. 7, 2020 -- Arclight Sherman Oaks
2010
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