''The Assistant'' is a 2019 American
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
written, directed, produced, and edited by
Kitty Green
Kitty Green is an Australian film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. The majority of her projects have been documentaries, while only one has been a narrative driven story. Green produced, directed, wrote, and edited the 2019 film '' ...
. The film stars
Julia Garner
Julia Garner (born February 1, 1994) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Ruth Langmore in the Netflix crime drama series '' Ozark'' (2017–2022), for which she received critical acclaim and won three Primetime E ...
as a junior assistant at a film production company.
Matthew Macfadyen,
Makenzie Leigh,
Kristine Froseth
Kristine Froseth (; no, Frøseth; born 21 September 1996) is an American and Norwegian actress and model. She is known for playing Kelly Aldrich in the Netflix series '' The Society'' and Alaska Young in the Hulu series '' Looking for Alaska''. ...
, Jon Orsini, and
Noah Robbins
Noah Robbins is an American actor.
Background
Robbins is a native of Washington, D.C. and graduated from Georgetown Day School in 2009. Robbins made his Broadway debut in the 2009 production of ''Brighton Beach Memoirs
''Brighton Beach Me ...
also star.
''The Assistant'' premiered at the
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022.
History
First held on 30 August 1974, th ...
on August 30, 2019, and was released in the United States on January 31, 2020, by
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...
. It was well-received by critics, who especially praised Garner's performance and the film's claustrophobic depiction of office life.
Plot
The film takes place over the course of a single day in the life of Jane, a junior assistant who has been working at a film production company in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
for five weeks. She arrives before dawn and performs various menial administrative tasks. Her job's long hours and demanding tasks keep her busy and stressed. During a phone call with her mother, Jane learns that she forgot to call her father on his birthday.
As Jane's day progresses, it becomes clear that her boss has been having sex in his office with women and facilitating a culture of sexual harassment at the company. Many of the male executives make snide comments about the boss's affairs while the female executives handle their own workloads and discuss the possibility of transferring to other departments. Whenever Jane does something her boss deems a mistake, he verbally abuses her over the phone as her two male junior assistant coworkers watch silently. Throughout the day, a variety of people from the boss's life interact with Jane, including his wife, his children's nanny, a famous actor, and a group of Chinese film producers.
In the afternoon, a young, inexperienced woman named Sienna arrives from
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
, saying she has been offered a job as a junior assistant. Concerned for Sienna's well-being, Jane goes to the
human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...
department to file a report after dropping Sienna off at a five-star hotel being paid for by the company. Wilcock, the head of HR, encourages Jane to share her concerns, but later makes clear that he is turning a blind eye to her harassment claims, before demeaning her, speaking down to her, and calling her jealous. He also implies that filing a formal complaint would accomplish nothing. As Jane leaves his office, he reminds her that she has nothing to worry about, as Jane is not the boss's "type". Visibly upset, Jane receives a call from her boss when she returns to her desk. He has been informed about her visit to HR and demands she write an email apology addressed to him, which she does. He replies saying that he is especially "tough" on Jane because he knows how great she is.
Toward the end of the day, Sienna arrives at the office so Jane can teach her how to use the phone systems. As night falls, Jane prepares a microwave dinner for herself while other employees leave; her boss stays late in his office with a young actress. Over the intercom, he tells Jane he no longer needs her for the day. Jane goes to a coffee shop across the street and calls her father as she eats a muffin. After she hangs up, she sees a silhouette in her boss's window appearing to have sex.
Cast
*
Julia Garner
Julia Garner (born February 1, 1994) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Ruth Langmore in the Netflix crime drama series '' Ozark'' (2017–2022), for which she received critical acclaim and won three Primetime E ...
as Jane, a junior assistant at a film production company
*
Matthew Macfadyen as Wilcock, the head of the HR department at Jane's company
*
Makenzie Leigh as Ruby, an aspiring actress
*
Kristine Froseth
Kristine Froseth (; no, Frøseth; born 21 September 1996) is an American and Norwegian actress and model. She is known for playing Kelly Aldrich in the Netflix series '' The Society'' and Alaska Young in the Hulu series '' Looking for Alaska''. ...
as Sienna, a newly hired junior assistant
*
Alexander Chaplin
Alexander Chaplin (né Gaberman; born March 20, 1971) is an American actor. Chaplin's most prominent role was that of speechwriter James Hobert on the sitcom ''Spin City''.
As with the rest of the ''Spin City'' main cast, Chaplin has featured ...
as Max
*
Juliana Canfield
Juliana Canfield is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Jess Jordan on the HBO series '' Succession'' (2018–present). She was also main cast member Beth DeVille on the post-apocalyptic drama '' Y: The Last Man (2021)''.
...
as Sasha
*
Dagmara Domińczyk
Dagmara Domińczyk ( ; born July 17, 1976) is a Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films '' Rock Star'' (2001), ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (2002), '' Kinsey'' (2004), '' Trust the Man'' (2005), '' Lonely Hearts'' (200 ...
as Ellen
*
Bregje Heinen as Tatiana
* Clara Wong as Tess
*
Patrick Breen
Joseph Patrick Breen (born October 26, 1960) is an American actor, screenwriter, and director.
Early life
Breen was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 26, 1960.
Career
He has acted primarily on TV but has also appeared in numerous films, ...
as Roy
* Jon Orsini and
Noah Robbins
Noah Robbins is an American actor.
Background
Robbins is a native of Washington, D.C. and graduated from Georgetown Day School in 2009. Robbins made his Broadway debut in the 2009 production of ''Brighton Beach Memoirs
''Brighton Beach Me ...
as Jane's fellow junior assistants
*
Purva Bedi
Purva Bedi is an American actress. She has appeared in many television serials and several films, including ''Green Card Fever'', ''American Desi'', and ''Cosmopolitan''. She has also starred in an episode of ''House''. Her most recent appearanc ...
as an executive assistant and Jane's immediate boss
* Migs Govea and Daoud Heidami as film executives
*
Patrick Wilson
Patrick Joseph Wilson (born July 3, 1973) is an American actor and director. He began his career in 1995, starring in Broadway musicals. He received nominations for two Tony Awards for his roles in ''The Full Monty'' (2000–2001) and ''Oklahoma ...
as famous actor (uncredited)
*
Jay O. Sanders
Jay Olcutt Sanders (born April 16, 1953) is an American film, theatre and television actor and playwright. He frequently appears in plays off-Broadway at The Public Theatre.
Early life and education
Sanders was born on April 16, 1953 in Austin, ...
as boss (voice)
Production
In September 2018, it was announced
Kitty Green
Kitty Green is an Australian film director, editor, producer, and screenwriter. The majority of her projects have been documentaries, while only one has been a narrative driven story. Green produced, directed, wrote, and edited the 2019 film '' ...
would write and direct the film with
James Schamus
James Allan Schamus (born September 7, 1959) is an American screenwriter, producer, business executive, film historian, professor, and director. He is a frequent collaborator of Ang Lee, the co-founder of the production company Good Machine, a ...
and
Scott Macaulay
Scott Macaulay (born November 23, 1990) is a Canada, Canadian-born Hungary, Hungarian ice hockey player. He currently plays for Hungarian team MAC Budapest in the Erste Liga (ice hockey), Erste Liga and the Hungary men's national ice hockey team, ...
producing under their Symbolic Exchange banner. Green was inspired to make the film while she was promoting her documentary ''
Casting JonBenét'' at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. Members of the press and festival organizers assumed Green got her ideas for the documentary from her male colleagues. The experience nearly led her to leave filmmaking, but she instead decided to "explore the underlying sexism she was exposed to, a subject that initially took the form of
sexual misconduct on college campuses but pivoted when the
Weinstein story broke."
To prepare for the film, Green spoke with people who had "worked under toxic, often predatory bosses" in the entertainment industry.
Her interviews included former assistants at film studios, agencies, and production companies, some of whom had worked at the
Weinstein Co. Green "picked up on patterns of women feeling disempowered, threatened or ignored, incorporating them into the screenplay."
She said she experienced some early difficulties in getting the film made because it was critical of the film industry. Green said there were several female executives "who really loved it" and said they would recommend it to their colleagues, but then Green received emails back from these executives that said their colleagues were "refusing to even read it".
In December 2018,
Julia Garner
Julia Garner (born February 1, 1994) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Ruth Langmore in the Netflix crime drama series '' Ozark'' (2017–2022), for which she received critical acclaim and won three Primetime E ...
joined the film's cast. Green cast Garner after seeing her on the TV series ''
The Americans
''The Americans'' is an American historical drama, period spy fiction, spy drama television series created by Joe Weisberg that aired on the FX (TV channel), FX television network for six seasons from January 30, 2013, to May 30, 2018. Weisberg ...
'' and needing someone "striking" to contrast with the mundanity of the office tasks in the film.
In April 2019,
Matthew Macfadyen,
Kristine Froseth
Kristine Froseth (; no, Frøseth; born 21 September 1996) is an American and Norwegian actress and model. She is known for playing Kelly Aldrich in the Netflix series '' The Society'' and Alaska Young in the Hulu series '' Looking for Alaska''. ...
,
Makenzie Leigh,
Noah Robbins
Noah Robbins is an American actor.
Background
Robbins is a native of Washington, D.C. and graduated from Georgetown Day School in 2009. Robbins made his Broadway debut in the 2009 production of ''Brighton Beach Memoirs
''Brighton Beach Me ...
and
Dagmara Domińczyk
Dagmara Domińczyk ( ; born July 17, 1976) is a Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films '' Rock Star'' (2001), ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (2002), '' Kinsey'' (2004), '' Trust the Man'' (2005), '' Lonely Hearts'' (200 ...
joined the cast. Production concluded that month in New York City.
Although the boss figure is a looming presence in the film, he is never actually seen. Green said, "I was always more interested in the machinery
f the workplace We know what happens when the door is closed. We've read those stories. … What I was more interested in was what's on the other side of the door: what people knew, what was going on, the culture in an environment like that."
Green also eschewed the use of a
score, saying, "the cultural silence
round sexual harassment in the officeis something we were exploring. That quiet was really important to me."
Release
''The Assistant'' premiered at the
Telluride Film Festival
The Telluride Film Festival (TFF) is a film festival held annually in Telluride, Colorado during Labor Day weekend (the first Monday in September). The 49th edition took place on September 2 -6, 2022.
History
First held on 30 August 1974, th ...
on August 30, 2019. Shortly afterward,
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...
acquired its distribution rights and released it in theaters on January 31, 2020. It also screened as an official Spotlight selection at the
2020 Sundance Film Festival.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 242 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Led by a powerhouse performance from Julia Garner, ''The Assistant'' offers a withering critique of workplace harassment and systemic oppression." On Metacritic, which assesses films on a score out of 100, ''The Assistant'' holds a score of 79 based on reviews from 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'',
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers ...
called ''The Assistant'' "a claustrophobic, intimately unsettling movie" and wrote, "it can claim to be the first drama that addresses the
#MeToo issue". In a similarly positive review, Moira Macdonald of the ''
Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...
'' lauded Julia Garner's performance and said the film shone "a light on a malevolent shadow". She also called it "wound taut and perfectly controlled", just like its protagonist, making for an experience that "feels entirely real". Jeannette Catsoulis of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called the film "less a #MeToo story than a painstaking examination of the way individual slights can coalesce into a suffocating miasma of harassment", and wrote that Garner's performance "makes the slow draining of Jane's soul almost visible".
Justin Chang
Justin Choigee Chang (born January 3, 1983) is an American film critic and columnist for the ''Los Angeles Times''. He previously worked for ''Variety''.
Early life
Justin Chang graduated from the University of Southern California in 2004. Chan ...
of
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
concluded that "it's the rigorous understatement of ''The Assistant'' that makes it so powerful in its vision of how easily the
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein (; born March 19, 1952) is an American former film producer and convicted sex offender. He and his brother, Bob Weinstein, co-founded the entertainment company Miramax, which produced several successful independent films includ ...
s of the world could exploit their absolute authority for years with little fear of consequence."
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Assistant, The
2019 films
2019 drama films
2019 independent films
2010s feminist films
American drama films
American feminist films
Bleecker Street films
Films about sexual harassment
Films produced by James Schamus
Films scored by Tamar-kali
Films set in offices
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York City
2010s English-language films
2010s American films