Movie Review: The Assistant

Saturday, July 15, 2023

A couple of weeks ago I watched a movie called The Assistant. It was definitely a powerful movie. I had not read much about the film but I heard it was really good. It’s not a long film but it packs in so much, and I normally take notes while I watch movies, but for this one because there wasn’t much dialogue I had to pay attention to the nonverbal communication in the movie. The Assistant stars Julia Garner, who I saw for the first time in the comedy-drama Grandma. In The Assistant she plays a young woman named Jane, an aspiring film producer who works as an assistant at her dream job, a film company. However, as the film progresses, it is clear that her dream job is not all it’s cut out to be and actually has a toxic work culture of abuse, gaslighting, and sexual harassment. At the beginning we see Jane going into the office early in the morning. It is clear that she hasn’t gotten much sleep and is being worked to the bone at this job. She eats Fruit Loops and then has to hurry back to her desk when she sees some of the executives walk past. Her coworkers are also intimidated by the boss, but they give into his bullying behavior and force her to deal with it, too. They don’t treat her with respect or value what she does every day. Every day Jane does stuff like make copies of spreadsheets, stock pills for her boss, distribute schedules to her coworkers, and take phone calls. Some of these calls she deals with people who respect her, but others, like the call from the boss’ wife, are very hard to deal with. In one scene, Jane’s coworker throws a crumpled ball of paper at her and tells her she needs to take a call from the boss’s wife. She gets on the phone with her, and the woman screams at Jane about how her husband cut off access to their credit cards and is with some other woman. When Jane asks her if she has her own credit cards, the woman gets angry with her and hangs up. Jane’s female coworkers also don’t treat her with respect. They ignore her and also make her feel invisible.

Tensions rise when a young beautiful woman named Sienna is hired on the team as an assistant. She is made to sign nondisclosure agreements and when Jane gets suspicious about this, no one says anything or encourages her to file a complaint because they know that the boss will intimidate them and probably fire them if they file a complaint. Jane goes to Wilcock in human resources and tells him that she finds it problematic that this young woman is being given this assistant job when she has very little prior experience. Even after Wilcock jots down what Jane tells him, he doesn’t take it seriously and laughs it off. He thinks that Jane is just jealous of this young woman and tells her that she will suffer serious consequences if she goes through with filing the complaint and asks if she wants to keep her job at the company. I think the part that was the worst was when he tells her before she leaves, “Don’t worry, you’re not his type.” I think watching this film a second time helped me understand why this kind of work culture is so toxic and problematic, and I think I came away from the film disturbed and deeply angered that this kind of work culture persisted for many years. When I first started learning about the Me Too movement, I wasn’t very sympathetic to the victims. I actually thought consent was as simple as saying “no” or speaking up, but what I had to understand is the ways in which power played a huge role in these Me Too cases, and the perpetrators of sexual harassment threatened to take away the victims’ livelihood and did what they could to keep these victims silent. When I found out about Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, I asked Why didn’t they just say no? And my friends had to remind me that these men used their influence and power to silence these women and threatened them with violence and harm if they didn’t remain silent about the abuse and assault. As I educated myself more about sexual violence, boundaries and consent I really started to understand how serious these allegations were.

The film left me feeling very upset and angered but also I had to understand that many of the real life cases of sexual assault and harassment in multiple industries, not just film, didn’t have happy endings. Many of these victims still carry trauma and pain. Around 2017, an article in The New York Times called “She Said” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey came out (it is now a movie with Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan playing the aforementioned reporters) detailing the years of sexual abuse that Harvey Weinstein inflicted on actresses and so many other women. Harvey as many know ran these very successful film companies which produced films like Chicago, Good Will Hunting and many more, but when those allegations came out it was hard to stomach that someone would do something like that to all those women. In fact, I still get chills thinking about that article.

Throughout The Assistant, it is very clear that where Jane works enforces and perpetuates a culture of silence and bullying. No one talks to one another, even to just exchange small talk, and most people pass by without speaking to each other. Everyone is intimidated and stressed out by this boss, and what got me is that everyone knew that the boss was being predatory towards these women, putting them up in hotels and sexually harassing them. When Jane’s coworker asks Jane where she had Sienna go to, Jane reveals she had Sienna go to a nearby hotel, and it’s clear that everyone knows that the boss is doing this to multiple young women. When Jane goes downstairs she sees a young woman leaving the office, and gives her an earring that fell. The woman tries to explain but she hesitates and leaves without telling Jane probably because she is scared for her life and the boss probably threatened her if she didn’t remain silent about his inappropriate behavior. Jane going to HR and then HR not taking the allegations against the boss seriously isn’t an isolated event; many cases of sexual harassment have gone unreported because the victims weren’t taken seriously. And I have to remember that even though a lot of these allegations do in fact happen in the entertainment industry, sexual violence happens in many industries as well, particularly in the food service and retail industry. In these industries, many people, especially young women, face harassment and assault but are silenced into not reporting it. The Me Too movement really made me aware of how prevalent this culture of shame and silence has been for decades. At the end of the film, I found myself thinking, Couldn’t Jane just quit? But I reflected on it and thought that Jane probably couldn’t afford to quit the job because she had to pay her rent and bills. Also, her boss was a bully and I’m sure because he was so powerful and intimidating Jane felt she couldn’t leave. When she emails him an apology after he screams at her for the umpteenth time about how worthless and useless he thinks she is, he replies saying that he is trying to “make her great” and that is why he is so hard on her. However, I wondered, Yes, this is her dream job. She’s wanted to work at this company for the longest time. But after two months, is is worth it, after what she has witnessed? Wilcock tells Jane that she can’t dig at Sienna for not having much experience as an assistant because Jane has only been at the company for two months, but I wondered, If this job is taking a severe toll on your mental health and there is a toxic culture and you have a boss who is a sexual predator? Girl, get the fuck out of there. Then again, after educating myself on the Me Too movement I had to realize that for many people, it’s not as simple as just bouncing out. You still carry that trauma and pain with you long after you leave that toxic environment, and when people ask you to recall it it can be painful to relive that trauma over and over again. I’m sure people heal from the trauma but it’s not an easy process.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie. Julia Garner’s performance was excellent and it was a powerful film.

The Assistant. 2019. Drama. Rated R. 1 hr 27 m.