Giving birth to a child is one of the most basic elements of life, which is why so many great science fiction stories revolve around the same terrifying question: What if childbirth were no longer an option?
Some sci-fi imagines a world where humankind mysteriously loses the ability to procreate, like in Children of Men or The Handmaid’s Tale, where our species’ abrupt biological dead end leads to the collapse of civilization and the rise of fascism. Other genre classics, like Brave New World or The Giver, imagine more advanced societies where birth is no longer a natural process but a bureaucratic and scientific one, emphasizing the ways that technological progress strips us of our humanity.
The Assessment, which is streaming for the first time on Hulu as of July 19, mostly falls into the latter category. This indie sci-fi drama from director Fleur Fortuné combines elements of classic science fiction to tell a story focused squarely on the difficult decision of whether any of us should have children or not—especially at a time when modern reproductive methods are under attack and it’s become increasingly difficult to imagine a brighter future for the next generation.
What’s ‘The Assessment’ movie about?
The Assessment takes place in a sanitized, post-apocalyptic society where resources are scarce and livable space is even scarcer. The surviving humans lucky enough to live in this society take a daily drug that makes them immortal (or at least dramatically slows down the aging process). So, in the name of population control, the right to have children is carefully controlled by the government and administered by a team of assessors who issue ironclad rulings on who is qualified to be a parent and who isn’t.
Virginia (Alicia Vikander) is one of these assessors, and her next job brings her to an isolated beach where a married couple named Aaryan (Himesh Patel) and Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) hope to one day raise a child. Unsurprisingly, given the title of the movie, the plot focuses on the assessment itself, which plays out over a brutal seven-day period during which Virginia makes herself at home in Aaryan and Mia’s concrete beach house.
Virginia spends most of that week pretending to be a child in an attempt to test Aaryan and Mia’s parenting potential. This includes challenges like playing with her food, acting out in front of dinner guests, and even almost drowning in the ocean. At other times, she reverts to her cold, procedural persona, asking probing questions about the couple’s history and administering reasonable tests like challenging them to assemble a complex children’s toy overnight.
The Assessment culminates with a string of brutal twists that I won’t spoil here, but if you were hoping for a happy ending, this isn’t the movie for you. That said, the way Fortuné’s film explores the challenges of childbirth makes The Assessment a worthwhile watch.
‘It’s very hard‘
Fortuné was dealing with a childbirth challenge of her own when she was first approached to direct The Assessment.
“I was in the process of trying to have kids with my husband for a while, and so I had IVF and adoption meetings and all of that, so I could completely relate to the couple,” she told RogerEbert.com in an interview.
The film’s portrayal of human reproduction as a scientific procedure divorced from the act of intercourse clearly resonated with Fortuné, and The Assessment takes this concept to its logical conclusion, imagining a world where natural reproduction (and natural intercourse) are illegal.
However, in that same interview, the director also explained how her own evolving thoughts on raising a child evolved during the filmmaking process. Fortuné now has a daughter of her own, and she’s become painfully aware of the damaged world she’s leaving behind for that little girl.
“Every day we wake up and there’s a new war, and freedom is being taken from so many populations,” she said. “It’s a very hard time. I try to stay hopeful because I have a three-year-old, and I want her to have a beautiful life. But I have to say that, yeah, it’s very hard. That’s why I think that we really need movies with deeper meaning.”
Science fiction like The Assessment can’t fix the world or its many problems. They probably can’t even help humanity avoid repeating the same mistakes made by society in dystopian allegories like The Handmaid’s Tale and Brave New World. But if stories like this one can give us a unique perspective on a universal topic like childbirth, then perhaps they still have something to offer.
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