The Assistant is Kitty Green’s feature film, directorial debut. I have never seen her documentaries, but after seeing this film, I imagine that they are brilliant. This movie caught my attention when I saw the preview and immediately wanted to watch more. Julia Garner stars as the titular character, Jane, who works for a powerful executive in the film industry, and we see a day in her life doing a job that most people either want or think is her dream job.
Depending on your temperament, I can see some viewers complaining that nothing happens in The Assistant because Green restricts her focus to her protagonist, not on the sensational things that are unfolding just out of sight or in her periphery. If people are looking for a theatrical, Hollywood dramatic version of sexual harassment in the workplace, don’t bother, but if you are into Chantal Akerman’s work or enjoy realistic movies, then you will love this film. It creates a tension and uneasiness that never gets released. There is no catharsis. It is simultaneously obvious what is going based on observation, but there is also room for plausible deniability if you are looking for it. Even though names are never explicitly said, it allegedly could be a slice of life at Miramax with Harvey Weinstein, who, fun fact, actually married his assistant and vocally defended Roman Polanski.
The Assistant is best seen on the big screen where you can be fully absorbed into the story and observe the minutiae and mundane in all its glory. Even though you are watching a nightmare, Green depicts the atmosphere of this office so carefully and with such detail, it is still quite beautiful to watch. I actually love the logistics of how offices function so watching it onscreen was delicious to me. It is like bureaucratic dancing if done well. We learn a lot about individuals, group dynamics and how complicated class, gender and race are in America if you look at how an office runs. Who gets which jobs? Who gets placed in certain spaces even the lowest men on the totem pole? Who gives and receives the orders? Similar to William Oldroyd in Lady Macbeth, Green has a way of constantly keeping on our toes. Usually Jane is not important, but other times, she is a surrogate for the boss and must be heeded. If you are not used to a film that shows and does not spoon feed you with a monologue explaining how the office works by a comedic or dramatic character with a colorful montage, then here are some easy ways to learn how.
Orient yourself by placing yourself in the protagonist’s shoes while watching The Assistant. How early do you have to leave your home to get to work? How do you get to work? Do you think that she has a lot, too little or a suitable amount of duties? Do you think that her list of expected duties is appropriate for someone with her title? Would you do them if you were in her position? How do you think people should get someone’s attention at work? If you make a mistake at your job, what should the boss’ reaction be? How would you apologize? How and when does the main character eat? If offered, would you take her job? Would you want it? Why? Do you think that she is complicit in any wrong doing? What do you think that she should do? What would you do? If you were a character in the film, who would you be? How do you fill the quiet, down time when you are by yourself or with others? What does that say about you, your relationship to others and the organization?
Even while watching The Assistant, I did not get all of the references until after I watched it even though in retrospect some were obvious. Alprostadtl syringes are used for impotence. The scene with the Asian men could be a reference to Weinstein’s alleged notorious mistreatment and distribution of foreign films, including recent Oscar award winning Bong Joon-ho, who has always been brilliant and his accolades are long overdue, and his film, Snowpiercer. A delicious revenge would be to turn his trenchant eye towards the same subject. Patrick Wilson fans, there is a brief uncredited cameo.
If I could have any question answered, I would love to ask one man in The Assistant why he always looked so exasperated when he saw Jane doing her usual routine. On some level, it felt as if she was a visual scapegoat for his frustrations with his inconsiderate boss, but it also reminded me of Parasite. He wanted the benefit of her labor without her existence. How dare you let me see you clean up the mess that I helped to make. At times, I thought that he was her boss whom Green never shows.
There is one reason to see The Assistant at home: to use closed captioning to understand the phone conversations. If the person was talking on the phone, I had no idea what that person was saying. It is possible that Green pulled a Christopher Nolan and deliberately made the audio clear, but because I am not completely certain that the fault lies with me, I may rewatch the film just to make sure that I did not miss any crucial dialogue.
The Assistant’s most notable scene involves Garner and Matthew Macfadyen. It is a deft way of showing how people can use political correctness as a shield for evil and a master class in mental martial arts, how to keep someone off balance, use their words against them while simultaneously doing nothing inappropriate and wrong, gaslighting by deflating and admitting the truth. It was a perfect depiction of professional negging—emotional manipulation to insure that you keep getting work and compliance while belittling that work and compliance to create the illusion that the organization does not need the individual as much as the individual needs the organization. If anyone ever wants to know what being an adult is, watch this scene. It is accurate AF and does not have to be about conduct that is possibly criminal, but even benign. It is the psychological slaughterhouse for human beings where dreams really die.
The Assistant shows how solidarity of any kind is virtually impossible. Hell really is other people, and what Green nails is the American sense of isolation in suffering and to attribute individual blame even if one intellectually knows that it is systematic and overarching. The male assistants also suffer in silence, alone. The women in this film firmly stay within their spheres: professional women of higher status, professional women of lower status, models/actors or women who think that she is a professional, but is really “his type.” The implicit threat of sexual harassment is not knowing what will inadvertently place you in harm’s way or who is in harm’s way so you keep everyone at arm’s length since you feel powerless to protect yourself or others. They then unwittingly adopt implicit gender bias in their relationship to each other thus replicating a system that harms then instead of consciously and actively trying to undermine it.
For detractors of The Assistant, if you watch costume period dramas, just think of this film as a costume period drama just of an era that you take for granted because you live in it. A fish does not know that its in water, or it thinks that air and dryness are dangerous. It is all about perspective, and this film probably made people uncomfortable to be left alone with his or her thoughts. I loved watching it and will definitely look forward to Green’s next project.