Go for the Assist?

The Oscars have come and gone. That means for a certain kind of film enthusiast, who really wants to make an effort to see nominated films, the pressure is off. You might now turn to a film that was nominated for zero Academy Awards, that many critics nevertheless thought would have been a worthy contender. A movie like The Assistant.

Jane is a junior production assistant working for a New York City film company. She's only been on the job for a month, but that job has already become dreary and routine: showing up at the office before anyone else, endless phone calls and scheduling of meetings, cleaning up after her inconsiderate co-workers... and swallowing the abuse from her tyrannical boss as she facilitates his sexual misconduct.

This movie isn't trying to be sneaky: it's inspired very directly by Harvey Weinstein's appalling crimes, and it wants you to know that. This movie aims to show the environment in which such a predator can thrive, the mechanisms in place to protect him, and why "no one" would say anything to stop it. And even though the movie is less than 90 minutes long, writer-director Kitty Green paints a crystal clear picture.

But sometimes, the movie isn't so much driven by plot as featuring the rough contours of a plot. Part of the message here is "this is just a normal day," and to underscore this, you get to see a lot of a normal office day. If you're an office worker, it's maybe been a year since you regularly worked a full week in that setting. This movie will bring that experience rushing back as though you'd never left. It opens with a 10-minute montage of waking up, commuting, turning on lights, making coffee, making copies, on and on and on. Peppered throughout the film are long phone calls to schedule plane flights, scrubbing mugs in the communal sink, a lot of mundane activities. It's frankly numbing, which is the clearly the point, but also kind of excruciating to watch.

In the moments when "the plot" actually comes around, there's some truly scathing commentary being offered. When assistants huddle together to draft an apology email, you sense this is something that happens all the time -- even before the movie literally shows that. When Jane is made to talk to the boss' wife simply because she's a woman, it's clear how wrong this is and on how many levels. And a lengthy scene in which Jane goes to register an HR complaint? Well, it's the cruel centerpiece of the movie, oily and upsetting and drawn out for all its uncomfortable creepiness.

Star Julia Garner is quite good, playing an office drone whose ambition has already been drummed out of her. Fellow assistants Jon Orsini and Noah Robbins are so perfectly smug and sympathtic, consoling and complicit. And Matthew Macfayden makes that key HR scene the reason to watch.

But would I recommend it? That's very, very hard to say. It's weird to feel like there's so much wasted time in a 90-minute movie. But it's also clear that this movie has something to say even to an audience that thinks "I get it." It's certainly not a movie to watch when you're already in a dark mood.

I suppose I'd grade the movie a C. That would ordinarily put it outside the range at which I'd nudge people to see it. But I'm also sure that if anything I've written here has made you think you might want to, then it probably is "for you."