“THE ASSISTANT”: Coercion

Julia Garner

Published February 20, 2020 by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene

My rating: B+ (Opens Feb. 21 at the Town Center and Rio)

87 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Just another day at the office becomes a moment of moral reckoning for the title character of “The Assistant,” a minimalist drama that only grows in potency the more you think about it.

Jane (Julia Garner) is a recent college graduate neck deep in her new job in the Lower Manhattan office of an independent film company. She gets up before dawn, naps during the Uber ride from Queens, and is the first person on site, turning on the lights, firing up the computers, brewing coffee.

Many a viewer will find the monotony all too familiar.

As the low man on the office totem pole, Jane is determined to keep her head down and establish a rep for quiet competence. She wants to be a producer some day.

A good chunk of Kitty Green’s film finds our protagonist doing both movie-related chores (Xeroxing spec scripts) and scutwork (donning rubber gloves to clean stains off the upholstery).

But the biggest chunk of her day is devoted to the Boss, a never-seen mogul (his muffled voice — heard through walls, open doorways and the telephone — is provided by Jay O. Sanders) of unassailable power.

Stationed outside the Boss’s private sanctum, Jane greets and ushers in guests, guards the door when the Boss doesn’t want to be disturbed, and fields phone calls.  She also is in charge of arranging transportation and lodging for the Boss’s frequent trips to the West Coast.

Writer/director Green is so good at nailing both Jane’s daily grind and the moments of gut-twisting anxiety (periodically she finds herself caught between the imperious Boss and his angry wife; more than once she endures a verbal chewing out from the executive suite) that the film’s true subject matter only slowly sneaks up on us.

Matthew Macfadyen

 

For starters there’s the general mood of the place.  The men — from executives to the young guys who occupy adjacent desks — aren’t so much overtly hostile to women as callously indifferent.

Employees joke about the Boss’s frequent visits to “the screening room” and laughingly warn each other not to sit on his sofa.

Jane obviously knows what her employer is up to. After all, she is witness to the steady stream of semi-talented but beautiful actresses who show up to be “interviewed.”

But when Jane is put in charge of a new employee — a fresh-faced (and possibly underaged) waitress from Idaho whom the Boss met at a film festival and has put up at a posh  hotel — her conscience kicks into overtime. This newcomer is so naive (and obviously under qualified for the job) that there can be little doubt of what her main duties will be.

Jane is so disturbed that she does the unthinkable, paying a visit to the company’s human resources guy (Matthew Macfadyen) to air her concerns.  Despite an initial show of sympathy, it becomes all too clear that his job is not to protect employees but to shield the Boss. He wonders if Jane isn’t a malcontent; perhaps she’s not right for this job?

Green, whose earlier work was in documentaries (“Ukraine Is Not a Brothel,” “Casting JonBenet”), reportedly spent months interviewing former employees of Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films before writing her screenplay. As a result, everything about this film feels unforced and absolutely on the money.

And by concentrating on the mundane and minimizing the overtly dramatic, “The Assistant” avoids any suggestion of stridency.  It’s like a puzzle whose clues dribble out until we get the big ugly picture.

Holding it all together is Garner, a marvel of compression and quiet emotion. This young actress (“Ozark,” “The Americans”) is a revelation in a role that requires her to hide her true feelings from her fellow employees, while showing just enough of her inner angst to grab those of us watching.

It’s early in the year; let’s hope this superb performance isn’t forgotten next fall at awards time.

| Robert W. Butler