The Assistant is not a comfortable film.
Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Kitty Green, The Assistant uses a meditative pace filled with repetition and minute details to create a thoroughly realistic office environment.
The plot follows Jane, played by Ozark’s Julia Garner, a put-upon assistant for an executive at a film production company.
Jane displays a quiet ambition as she strives to succeed in her industry but we soon begin to see how she navigates a culture rife with abuses of power, deafening silence on immoral behaviours, and the manipulation of her own dreams.
Garner is the core of the film, delivering a quiet, subtle, but passively devastating performance as a woman forced to be part of something that disgusts her.
A risky but highly effective move from Green is to never show Jane’s boss, giving him an almost omniscient ability to track her every move and comment on her work at the most crushing times, and give an ominous tone to proceedings. This faceless villain may be one of the most effective we’ve seen in quite some time.
However, another exemplary turn is from Quiz's Matthew Macfadyen, channeling his slippery vibe from HBO series Succession, here as a polite but increasingly dismissive HR representative who gets the scene of the film with Garner as her day just gets to be too much.
Despite its short runtime, its economical style means The Assistant feels longer as we endure the painful monotony and micro-abuses of Jane’s nightmare time in the office.
This realism and clinical examination of its lead character’s existence may prove to be too grave and slow-paced for some, but The Assistant is more than just its dreary aesthetics and will leave you contemplating its unsettling scenes even after the end credits stop rolling.
It is not the first film to tackle sexual harassment and cultures of silence in recent years, but the impressive ability to render these issues in an everyday reality is expertly executed.
The added context of the industry it is set in also means the presence of the ever-relevant Harvey Weinstein scandals are never far from our minds.
Ultimately, The Assistant is a landmark film for the #MeToo era and a hauntingly somber examination of abuse in a work environment.
Verdict
The Assistant is a forensic, nuanced, and disquieting examination of systemic abuse and a toxic work culture fronted by a remarkable lead performance from Julia Garner.
The Assistant is now available to purchase on Digital and will be available to rent from May 15, 2020.
