I guess I'm not used to hearing Julia Garner speak without a Southern accent due to my quarantine binge of Ozark but seeing her in a completely different, feature role like this was just as rewarding. The Assistant is an incredible and timely film that tackles its subject of workplace harassment towards women better than any story has before. The central thing to remember about this film, however, is that it really is not defined by its "Me Too" leanings but rather its approach is much more subtle and powerful than any outright one could have been. The filmmaking abilities of director Kitty Green are absolutely perfect for this film and there is no one else who could have told this story in such a moving way. From the phenomenal performance from its lead to the environmental bits and pieces that play into this film's discomfort, there is so much to appreciate about the brilliant ways this film went about telling its message.
Jane (Julia Garner) has landed her dream job of working for one of the world's top film studios and starts out as the assistant for one of the company's top executives. Working with her two male coworkers (Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins), she experiences over the course of one day how it's like to be a woman working in the field and the injustices that occur almost daily. Kitty Green's writing and direction throughout this film are amazing and her handling of this story was the best thing to ever happen with it. This story obviously belongs to being told by a woman and Green's pacing of the story really helps it. Clocking in just under 90 minutes, she tells this story in an absolutely flawless way by showing the mundanity of an office job underscored by its main theme of harassment. What this film does best in its quick, 87-minute runtime, however, is subtly show all of the injustices that Jane faces every day. While that might be the entire point of the story, it does so brilliantly and concisely. This film could have easily been a much louder defense and announcement of the way that women are treated but it finds its power in the quietest moments. There are so many scenes scattered in this film that genuinely represent what it's like working in an office like this, especially in film. While the industry that I love has definitely had its problems made more aware of in the past few years, Green's film really just puts the final nail in the coffin of all of the pure shit that women have to go through on the daily. I can not speak to this film's universality, given the fact that I am a man, but the way Green just outwardly shows what it's like is such a powerful way of telling this story and so much so that I became incredibly hurt. Jane might be a simple character written in a simple world but Green's script does a fantastic job of portraying her struggles to everyone equally. It's impossible to overlook the harassment Jane faces in both minor and major ways and it hurts even more given that Green is able to make her audience care about the main character in incredible ways.
Sound design and cinematography are other aspects that really make this film reliant on its environment to tell its story. The cinematography from Michael Latham was extraordinary and he makes every shot appear different, despite being set in one office for almost the entirety of the film. His framing of Jane and her constant struggles through her eyes is fantastic and I really enjoyed how he tells his own visual story through the lens. The sound design was particularly effective as well because of its glaring silence and powerful uneasiness. The Assistant does a great job of portraying the reality of an office setting and how almost dystopian it can be. I was consistently tense throughout this film because of how real it felt and it, therefore, leaves room for Green to pound in her message even deeper. Even in just a scene of Jane writing an email expressing her condolences for menial tasks that her boss is furious about, the audience can overwhelmingly feel how she feels and the use of silence is to thank for that vivid experience. The greatest and most impactful piece of this film would have to be Julia Garner's performance. She is proving to be one of our greatest working actresses and she can encompass emotions in just her face better than most performers I have ever seen. Especially in the HR scene, Garner's talent is put on full display and I adored every moment of her acting abilities. In just the dialogue between Jane and the HR representative, the audience can clearly see how conflicted she is with wanting to report her boss with the danger of being fired. That one dialogue element is what I loved most about Jane's interactions with the men of the office. Every little microaggression that was shown in this film instantly becomes a macroaggression and Garner is just phenomenal at expressing her character's anguish over having to deal with it all.
The Assistant is an excellent and simple film that captures the struggles and modernities of women in the workplace a lot better than a lot of the media has in the past few years. This is really one that everyone should be required to see and while many of its most glaring tension points are its subtlest, they work in such powerful ways that are hard to be ignored. Kitty Green is exceptional at portraying these modern anxieties and although this film only takes place across the span of one day, she has done the best job of making it rightfully feel like a lifetime of persecution.
My Rating: ★★★★
No comments:
Post a Comment