The Assistant
Vertigo Releasing, Drama Available now Starring: Julia Garner, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins, Kristine Froseth, Matthew Macfadyen, Alexander Chaplin, Dagmara Dominczyk, Mackenzie Leigh.
Personal assistant Jane (Julia Garner) arrives blearyeyed before dawn at a New York film production company to manage the diary of her omnipotent boss, who is heard but never seen.
Two nameless male assistants (Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins) operate in the other half of the office and silently survey Jane's actions.
When a young woman named Sienna (Kristine Froseth) from Boise, Idaho, arrives unannounced for a nonexistent assistant's role, Jane spirits her away to a nearby hotel.
Soon after, production executives Max (Alexander Chaplin) and Donna (Dagmara Dominczyk) joke that the boss is probably at the hotel too.
Jane hurries to speak to human resources manager Wilcock (Matthew Macfadyen) to voice her concerns but his response stuns her into uneasy silence.
The Assistant is a discomfiting study of psychological warfare and harassment in the modern workplace.
Writer-director Kitty Green's impressive narrative feature debut hints at unspeakable horrors within the framework of a mundane working day.
Collusion between characters is conveyed in terrified glances.
A lean script relies on minimal dialogue to expose the sickening imbalance of power such as when Garner's lackey leaves the office as her boss conducts a late-night casting session with an actress (Mackenzie Leigh) and a female executive in the lift offers these meagre words of comfort: "Don't worry, she'll get more out if it than he will."
Garner delivers a riveting and quietly devastating performance as the mentally and physically exhausted title character.
Our sympathy is firmly tethered to her, wrestling with her culpability as a silent witness when speaking out would invariably end her dreams.