3.5 stars out of 5
I read the poster and thought “Julia Garner is too old to play a young assistant.” But I was thinking of Jennifer Garner. Was pleasantly surprised to learn that the lead was Julia, who I am very familiar with from Ozark and The Americans. She’s been great in both those series and I was glad to see her getting a starring cinematic role.
The victimization that Garner’s characters have faced in those TV shows prepared her well for the role of Jane, the titular Assistant. She is the junior assistant to a mostly unseen downtown-NYC-based movie exec. And guess what, he is a total dick.
Jane is the first to arrive in the morning, and we watch as the workplace slowly comes to life. For quite a while I thought we were witnessing snapshots from Jane’s work life, how she’s treated and how she handles herself. But then I realized, huh, she’s always wearing the same top. And finally it hit me, wait, we are witnessing one day in Jane’s life. Which maybe seemed a little stupid?
Stay with me here: We’ve all worked for Horrible Bosses (even Garner’s Ozark pal Jason Bateman). And it’s exponentially worse when you’re a young woman working for a demanding, morally questionable dude. And the high pressure, fast-paced office of a movie company adds a whole extra set of challenges. But here’s the thing. All the humiliations and degradation don’t happen in THE SAME DAY. They don’t! Sometimes you’re just working on an Excel document for a long time and it’s kind of boring. Amiright?
So, I don’t know, maybe The Assistant is an allegory for the abuse faced by All Assistants. We truly see everything: bullying, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual impropriety, personal issues bleeding into a professional space, favoritism, boys’ club, etc. etc. etc. With her two more veteran fellow assistants, there is sometimes a siege mentality, and the two guys talk Jane through how to apologize and how to deal with the boss’s wife.
Garner does a terrific job in the role, focused, holding in the rage and the pain, almost breaking but holding on. The mood that writer/director Kitty Green summons feels just right: the insular, unfeeling environment, the flow from early in the morning to late at night. There isn’t really a plot, so this seemed more like an extended short film than a feature. And I also had the nagging feeling that I was watching a movie about how awful movie people are, and I wondered, were all the assistants treated excellently on this flick, and is it OK to try to make money off their suffering? The Assistant is definitely watchable but it is a downer. Workers of the world, unite and take over.
Jack Silbert, curator