Movie Review: The Assistant

The Assistant **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Kitty Green.

Written by: Kitty Green.

Starring: Julia Garner (Jane), Matthew Macfadyen (Wilcock), Makenzie Leigh (Ruby), Kristine Froseth (Sienna), Jon Orsini (Male Assistant), Noah Robbins (Male Assistant), Stéphanye Dussud (The Wife), Juliana Canfield (Sasha), Alexander Chaplin (Max), Dagmara Dominczyk (Ellen), Bregje Heinen (Tatiana), Lou Martini Jr. (John), Liz Wisan (Edwina), Clara Wong (Tess).

 

We never meet the film executive obviously based on Harvey Weinstein that the title character, Jane (Julia Garner) works for in The Assistant – and that is by design, and very smart. An actor in that role would likely take over the film, and the conversation around it – and that isn’t what writer/director Kitty Green is going for in her film. This is a movie about the kind of corporate culture that allows someone like Weinstein to thrive and continue to prey on young women, because everyone is too scared to say anything, to do anything, and even if they do, no one will do anything anyway. This is a sad, low-key film – and it runs just 87 minutes – but its cumulative power sneaks up on you slowly, with devastating effects.

 

This is Green’s follow-up to her underrated and underseen Casting Jon Benet documentary – which I thought was wonderful, but didn’t seem to find the right audience. For the true crime crowd, that film was confusing – they thought they’d see another glossy, blow-by-blow of the famed case (as if we need one) – and I think the real audience for the film assumed that was what it was, and stayed away. What it was though was really about how we, as a society, process something like that case – how we know all the players, all the theories, and understand so little.

 

The Assistant isn’t similar to that film except that it takes a different approach to a well-known story. It would be easy to make a Harvey Weinstein film, where the character is a larger than life monster, that everyone in the audience can feel safe in hating. Hell, you may even be able to make a good film out of it. But what Green is going for here is a portrait of the culture of silence that allows a Weinstein to exist for so long.

 

Jane is a smart young woman – an Ivy League graduate, who wants to be a producer one day, and sees this job – as one of three assistants to the Chairman (that the other two are male, and given better responsibilities, is not an accident). She finds herself answering phones, collecting mail, setting up meetings, printing off reports, etc. – the grunt work that needs to be done. She walks silently through the halls; most people don’t notice her – or pretend not to. She is put in impossible positions – having to answer the phones call from The Wife – where no matter what she says, it will be wrong. Or training the new “assistant” – a waitress from Idaho, with no experience, who will have no real responsibilities, and is being put up in a fancy Manhattan hotel (and seems confused that Jane wasn’t put up in one when she started). She also ferries various women to and from the Chairman’s office, or to nondescript conference rooms to sign some sort of agreements – or returning their jewelry that they somehow left in the chairman’s office.

 

It’s clear that everyone knows what the Chairman is doing. They roll their eyes at this parade of young women, complain about the time they have to waste on their acting reels, and playing nice, or making excuses when he is entertaining them. They don’t care. One woman tells Jane not to worry about it – “She’ll get more out of it then he will – trust me”.

 

The most striking scene – the one where the culture comes into complete focus – is when Jane goes to HR – and is ushered into the office of corporate stooge (a perfectly cast Matthew Macfadyen), who also clearly knows what is happening, but makes it very clear to Jane that nothing is going to be done about it. And, to be fair, when he reads back her complaint to her – it’s all just a bunch of stuff that doesn’t really add up to anything. It’s conjecture, and observations, without much backing it up. As she leaves, he tells her not to worry “You’re not his type” he assures her.

 

So Green isn’t making a film about Weinstein – which, to be honest, I’m not sure could be as interesting as this one is. What of interest is there in a film about a powerful, older man acting like a creep, and pressuring young women into sex? We’ve seen that before. What we haven’t seen, in quite the same way, is the entire picture of the culture around someone like Weinstein – of people who don’t do anything, because it would hurt their careers, their standing, and who feel it wouldn’t change anything anyway. They’re not wrong. And yet, of course, they’re all wrong – and by not doing anything, it is allowed to continue for years, without end. This is a powerful, devastating portrait of that culture – and the first great film of 2020.