The Assistant

[edited the morning after, ‘cause I had more to say] Well, that was certainly grim. While I’d imagine a lot of people would describe this as slow, I think ‘deliberate’ is more applicable. Nearly every little gesture and every conversation, whether overheard or participated in by Jane, along with every micro aggression visited upon her, has an echo later on and if the viewer is too hung up on ‘but nothing’s happening,’ they are going to miss the detonation (however muted) of those set ups. For just one example of this—and I mainly call it out as it’s first placement is so early in the film—keep track of the couch in the boss’s office, the referencing of which goes through several phases: from surface level (‘huh, that’s kinda odd, but ok’) through office lore (unexplained, but obvious ‘jokes’), and which become exponentially worse with the final, non-verbal implications, both as they relate to gender relations and what they mean for the characters (which is made possible by the way that the middle phase gives the viewer the necessary spatial orientation to understand them). The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the entire film is a masterpiece of construction. It is power dynamics presented as workplace horror and seen through the most claustrophobic of lenses.