The Assistant

Australian born writer/director Kitty Green

Actress Julia Garner (left) with director Kitty Green

THE ASSISTANT         B                 

USA  (85 mi)  2020  d:  Kitty Green              Official site

A spare and minimalist film about sexual abuse in the workplace, made in the shadow of the Harvey Weinstein trial for rape that is currently under way, told from a woman’s point of view, following a day in the life of a new hire on the lowest end of the ladder of an exclusive Tribeca film production company in New York, made to resemble Weinstein’s Miramax, Jane (as in Jane Doe, an anonymous figure), played by Julia Garner, who got her start in Sean Durkin’s equally creepy Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), who should be thrilled at a new opportunity, thinking her life may finally be on the right path, yet all indications suggest something sinister is afoot, becoming an eerie film closer to the horror genre, accentuating a murky atmosphere with dire consequences.  The film is dry and emotionally minimalist, played down to its bare essentials, actually resembling the extreme low-budget look of Shane Carruth’s PRIMER (2004) or Steven Soderbergh’s BUBBLE (2005), early experiments in digital cinematography, where the washed out color and an underscored sound design are as important as anything viewed onscreen, where nothing is revealed, per se, but the story is in what is suggested, where the near unspoken narrative is revealed by the banal accumulation of tiny details, all pointing to a near mythical male authority figure at the top who is never seen, but heard screaming profanities into the phone when things don’t go right, as underlings are blamed, where they are humiliated and bullied into writing immediate apologies, with male production assistants helping compose the precise language of a “correct” apology, one of the foundations upon which this company operates, as routine habits are ingrained into the established culture where all are subservient to the man at the top.  Opening at the wee hours before dawn, while the city is still asleep, a company car picks her up and delivers her to the job, where she flicks on the florescent lights above the empty desks and starts her day making coffee, eating cereal, going through emails, before attending to the unglamorous details of her job, thanklessly organizing each day’s schedule, including the latest financial reports, making sure each of the upstairs executives have copies, while ordering office supplies and coordinating travel and hotel arrangements.  As people wander in, she is largely ignored (no one ever speaks her name), as people are glued to their phones or engaged in myopic conversations that exclude outsiders, who are not meant to be a part, where it’s clear everyone values their privacy, shunning any idea of sharing work information, as each exists in their own work space, separate and apart from all others.  It’s an odd work environment, where boundaries are fiercely protected, and everything is a closely guarded secret, sharing nothing, as you’re likely to get blamed vociferously if something leaks out.  

Originally conceived as a documentary, following hundreds of interviews of women in the industry, but also college students and theater groups, Australian born writer/director Kitty Green envisions a quietly shattering interior exposé that becomes an alarming warning system of the trivial routines that become commonly accepted in a male-dominated business where women are routinely relegated to secondary and inferior roles.  Jane starts her day in clean up mode, straightening up the mess that was left behind in her boss’s office the night before, which includes excruciatingly personal detail, like discovering missing earrings or putting on rubber gloves to scrub clean certain stains on an office sofa, even picking up used syringes, not to mention disinfecting the executive chair, all done with no questions asked.  Inspecting the contents of packages received, they include boxes of bottled water, but also pills and medicinal products that she carefully lines up inside his desk drawer.  She’s also seen washing dishes in a communal kitchen, with others dropping their dishes nearby for her to clean, yet no one ever even acknowledges her, including the other women working there.  Perhaps the defining visual image of the film is Jane delivering Xeroxed copies of scripts or a perfectly made smoothie to an empty chair, where each delivery is expected to be punctual, even though her boss is never seen, but remains a ghostly figure whose spectral presence hovers overhead until suddenly erupting audibly in enraged phone calls after someone screws up.  Jane is all but invisible herself, quiet, extremely reserved, ignored by the other two male assistants sitting across from her, Noah Robbins and Jon Orsini, listed in the credits as Male Assistant 1 and 2, essentially judging her every single move, making sure she gets the call from the irate wife demanding to speak to her boss, blamed as a co-conspirator in a seemingly irreparable marriage, then getting that hysterical call from her boss wondering what the hell she told her, overly disturbed by her inability to make the wife go away, an act for which she was ordered to apologize, with the male assistants obviously getting some sort of satisfaction, snickering behind her back like juveniles, as if this was a beginner’s hazing ritual.  Mostly what we hear is an endless clicking of keyboards, the sound of a Xerox machine, or brief bits of conversation heard from employees walking by, all producing an overly detached working environment, where employees are isolated from one another, while she goes from room to room sweeping up crumbs from various tables and removing the coffee cups, placing everything in a plastic bag, essentially taking out the garbage, while she’s also in charge of ordering lunch, yet gets scolded if anything’s wrong with the order.  When the other male assistants wish to get her attention, they throw wads of scrunched up paper at her, pretty much defining a degrading and dehumanizing work experience, yet they’re quickly at her side helping her compose yet another office apology when needed.   

Perhaps the most pervasive reality is the ongoing silence that sits in the air, as these offices aren’t filled with that familiar workplace chatter, instead you could hear a pin drop, accentuating a sense of personal isolation in her day to day tasks, where every miscue is elevated and viewed disproportionately, while offhanded comments about what goes on in her boss’s office are commonplace and the subject of jokes, while she receives blank checks for the boss to sign, which arouses her suspicion, but she’s told not to worry, as he’ll know what they’re for.  But she starts getting red flags when a new arrival appears named Sienna (Kristine Froseth), who seems overly young and without experience, working previously as a waitress, with the boss putting her up in an exclusive hotel after flying her in on a company plane from Boise, Idaho, while Jane is expected to train her as the new receptionist.  When she realizes the boss is away, presumably to visit this young hire at her hotel, Jane pays a visit to human resources to report alleged misconduct, but the man sitting across from her (Matthew McFadyen) paints a disturbingly *different* view of what she’s reporting, belittling every aspect of her allegations, suggesting it may all be in her head, that she may be under a lot of stress, working long hours, probably hasn’t seen her friends in weeks, basically impugning her character, discarding her account with utter derision.  And while she’s reeling from those remarks, he suggests she could be jeopardizing her career by filing a complaint, acknowledging she has every right, but undermines her at every turn, concerned only with protecting the interest of the company.  This astonishing scene sends chills down your spine for the manner in which she is completely devalued, her spirit broken, her testimony deemed worthless, eliciting tears from Jane, with this man shoving a Kleenex box in her direction as a condescending gesture of his ultimate triumph, demolishing any sense of self-esteem.  As she walks out the door, he tells her offhandedly that she has nothing to worry about, as she’s not his type anyway.  Yet by the time it takes her to walk back to her desk, all eyes are upon her, as everyone in the office already knows, shredding her reputation while violating every aspect of confidentiality, where it immediately becomes clear the entire structure of the company was built to protect one person.  Shortly afterwards, never feeling more helpless, she is again berated by her boss, with the fellow male assistants once again helping her compose a letter of apology.  Of course, yet another young woman pays a visit to the boss in his office, a young actress looking for a part, bringing with her some sample video material, remaining behind closed doors for the remainder of the evening, long after all the other employees have left and gone home.  Without revealing any graphic material onscreen, the film is reduced to an enormous amount of specific detail, creating an atmosphere of dread and mistrust, all conducive to a systematic code of silence that prevails at every level, both male and female staff trained to look the other way, with entry level employees having little recourse.  A brief phone call home with her parents offering trite and cliché’d gestures of support for finally landing that dream job only punctuates her crushing isolation.   

Love Trilogy: Chained (Eynayim Sheli)

LOVE TRILOGY:  CHAINED (Eynayim Sheli)      C+                  

Israel  Germany  (112 mi)  2019 ‘Scope  d:  Yaron Shani

The second of a three-part Love Trilogy, between Stripped and Reborn, using an unusual process where the actors, who have never studied acting, experience living the lives of their characters for a year, creating a strange dynamic meant to blur the line between fiction and real life, with many scenes being improvised, creating a raw and intense cinéma vérité effect.  These films aren’t sequential and may be viewed in any order, though there will be familiar narrative intersections.  Made by the co-director of AJAMI (2009), a joint Arab-Jewish collaboration seven years in the making that was a blistering piece of social realism winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes as the best first feature, using a cast of non-professionals, though the lead protagonist also appeared in that earlier film.  Not nearly as intense as AJAMI, this is more of an individual exposé, basically a slice of life closely following the life of Rashi (Eran Naim), a well-respected police officer with 16 years on the force, but a big, burly guy, an imposing physical force.  In early scenes, we can see he does his work diligently, carefully protecting two young brothers (one is concealed in a locked bathroom) from an abusive father, which ties into his role as an expectant parent, meeting his wife Avigail (Stav Almagor) for a routine pregnancy evaluation, horrified at the results, given perhaps the worst news possible, yet he tenderly consoles his distraught wife as they lose the baby.   While he and his wife appear to be on solid grounds, she has an attractive 13-year old daughter Yasmine (Stav Patay) who’s a handful, overly protected by her mother, growing more rebellious by the day, headstrong and stubborn, often appearing selfishly out of control.  Avigail is hesitant to implement guidelines or expectations to reign in her daughter’s behavior, thinking it’s just typical teenage stuff, so it only gets worse, with Yasmine pitting her more lenient mother against her more authoritative step-father, attempting to drive a wedge between them so she can get her own way.  While Rashi quickly sees this for what it is, Avigail less so, as she’s simply not the punitive type, continually giving her daughter plenty of room, particularly after the distressing medical results.  

Two incidents accelerate a quick decline in morale, one is a scheduled photoshoot with a photographer, as Yasmine has modeling aspirations, with Rashi, to her chagrin, sticking around to make sure nothing inappropriate happens.  She freaks out when he won’t leave, smothered by his presence, literally ordering him out the door, but he doesn’t budge.  When the photographer shows him pictures she brought suggesting what she had in mind, nothing risqué, but many are suggestively revealing, yet fairly typical of what kids see today in magazines, on television or on their computers.  Rashi simply doesn’t want to see her baring skin, so she has a conniption, throwing a fit, screaming at the top of her lungs, as she’s not getting her way, accusing Rashi of ruining her life, growing so out of control that he pulls the plug on the shoot and decides to take her home, protesting the entire way, claiming parental abuse.  The second is a police incident checking a group of young kids allegedly dealing drugs in the park, who quickly object to their bags being searched, so he subjects them to a strip search, discovering no hidden evidence.  The next day, however, the two kids that were searched file a sexual harassment complaint that makes the headlines, claiming they were inappropriately touched, with Rashi receiving word that the father of one of these kids is well connected in secret intelligence forces.  Internal Affairs officers arrive at their door early the next morning armed with a warrant, confiscating all computers, even those belonging to others, in their intrusive search for evidence of a crime.  The interrogation with Internal Affairs does not go well, as Rashi is insulted by their accusations and their attempt to bully and intimidate him, so he throws it back in equal measure, but he’s relieved of duty, with pay, until they complete the investigation, which could be anywhere from 5 days to a month, leaving him thoroughly demoralized afterwards, as they’ve wounded his pride.  Things don’t go well at home either, with Yasmine disobeying, staying out late, not revealing where she is, refusing to answer to anyone, forcing Rashi to use friends in the force to pick up her phone signal, discovering she’s with a group of friends drinking in the park, literally dragging her home kicking and screaming, with Yasmine screaming for him to get out of their life forever, refusing to live with him anymore, with Avigail deciding it might be better for him to leave for a few days, giving them some space.

Rashi has an overcontrolling nature that likely comes with being a policeman, but he doesn’t turn it off at home, becoming morally self-righteous and overly authoritative, believing he is the law even in his own home.  Where he could demonstrate greater flexibility with his family, his position remains fixed, refusing to listen, as he continually interrupts others, cutting them off in mid-sentence, always needing to have the final word on any given subject.  Avigail believes problems should be discussed and worked out, while Rashi is more of a right and wrong kind of guy, where talk is cheap, judging you by your actions.  While Yasmine is a self-centered drama queen, Rashi is just as much of a diva, always needing things to go his way to maintain the upper hand.  In this tug of war, Avigail is caught in between, but once Rashi leaves the home, it alters the balance.  First spending time with his parents, he’s caught off guard, not used to abiding by the rules of others, quickly moving into a hotel where his life sputters out of control, away from the police, away from his family, where it’s more difficult to find meaning in his life, becoming more desperate to reassert himself with his family, but they remain out of his reach.  Reduced to phone communication, it’s more difficult and unpredictable, forced into leaving voice messages, continually pressuring his wife to return, with Avigail continually extending the date, obviously afraid to reignite the original source of contention, for which she has no answers.  When Internal Affairs clears him to return to work, he’s still not allowed, based on that powerful voice within the department, leaving him in limbo.  As his life progressively deteriorates, the picture only grows more bleak, even as he hangs out with fellow members of the force after hours, clearly he’s not the same, consumed by humiliation, self-loathing and anguish, where it becomes more difficult to save face and pretend nothing is wrong.  The psychological descent from the more reasonable guy we see at the beginning is stunning, literally suffocating on his own toxic masculinity, like a disease growing inside him, feeling betrayed by both his family and his profession, leaving him out in the cold, growing more pathetic by the day.  This film exposes a deep psychological hole in modern Israel, a curious byproduct of manhood, which is a proving ground, where one demonstrates strength by decisiveness and moral acuity, not by going Rambo, but in learning how to integrate one’s values and beliefs within a family and community, which becomes a shared responsibility.  Rashi’s go-it-alone approach resembles a sinking ship, where he’s dug himself a dark pit of disgrace that he simply can’t crawl out of, believing there’s no escape, left with nothing to hold onto, his beliefs shattered, his confidence in shambles, his future grim.