Making of a monster’s assistant
THE ASSISTANT
★★★★✩ (15, 87 mins)
Director: Kitty Green
Stars: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins
Streaming now on itunes, Apple TV, Amazon, Sky Store, Virgin, Google, Microsoft, Curzon, BFI Player
ASTRONAUT
★★★✩✩
(PG, 96 mins)
Director: Shelagh Mcleod
Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Lyriq Bent, Krista Bridges, Richie Lawrence Streaming now on itunes, Amazon, Sky Store, Virgin, Google, Rakuten
NOTHING FANCY: DIANA KENNEDY
★★★★✩
(NR, 73 mins)
Director: Elizabeth Carroll
Streaming now on Apple TV, Amazon, Curzon, Google, Itunes, Microsoft, Sky Store, Virgin
WE NEVER see the New York movie mogul at the centre of The Assistant, a quietly chilling drama starring a brilliant Julia Garner.we don’t need to. Bar sending the film into your living room on a zimmer frame, it couldn’t be any clearer that the angry voice in the neighbouring office belongs to Harvey Weinstein.
Young graduate Jane (Garner) doesn’t have to give her bullying boss a massage – “Don’t worry, you’re not his type,” says Matthew Macfadyen’s slimy human resources manager. For her the abuse is more insidious.
Jane has only been his personal assistant for five weeks and she’s already at a crossroads. She is beginning to realise that holding on to her dream of being a film producer requires a certain moral flexibility.
Writer-director Kitty Green stages the drama like a tense, fly-on-the-wall documentary as we follow Jane over the course of one very long and very bad day at the office.
Her duties, which begin before dawn and end well into the night, seem mundane but become increasingly sinister.
There’s photocopying scripts, booking limos, retrieving jewellery from an office sofa and ferrying a naive young hopeful to a fancy hotel.
The unnamed mogul uses a carrot and stick approach to motivating his new assistant.torrents of abuse over the phone are followed by cajoling emails promising to help her with her career. She just needs to become complicit in his abuse.
Garner is magnificent. In this world of silent dread, Jane can never say what she is thinking but this talented young actress lets us see the idealism of youth slowly drain from her soul.
Astronaut was ready to take off in cinemas last month before the lockdown saw it pulled from the launch pad. But in some ways it feels more at home on TV than on the big screen.
Its themes of caring for the vulnerable, respecting the elderly and questioning authority now have a topical edge. Its gentle comedic tone should play well in these unsettling times too. Richard Dreyfuss plays retired engineer Angus Stewart, a widower, aged 75, who has moved in with daughter Molly (Krista Bridges). He’s bonding nicely with his grandson Barney (Richie Lawrence) when son-in-law Jim (Lyriq Bent) forces him into a retirement home.
Angus perks up when he learns of a contest for a seat on the first commercial space flight. He hides his dodgy heart and de-ages himself with make-up to make the shortlist before noticing something fishy about the hastily-built launch pad.
None of this is very convincing and the scenes in the retirement home range from mildly amusing to awkwardly quirky. Dreyfuss deserves bigger and better films, but his star is still shining brightly.
ENGLISH food writer Diana Kennedy, the fascinating but slightly terrifying subject of the documentary Nothing Fancy, is far better known in the US where she has presented her own Masterchef-style TV show and appeared in countless guest slots on cookery shows.
As she turned 97 in March, it may seem a little late in the day for introductions but this disappointingly brief feature made me want to know a lot more about this extraordinary lady.
Film-maker Elizabeth Carroll introduces us to Diana in her Mexican eco-home that has been her base for a six-decades-long quest to discover regional recipes.
“She’s like the Indiana Jones of food,” one chef says describing her solo trips to the country’s rural outposts.
Carroll then follows her as she berates vendors at her local market, complains about plagiarists and terrorises a smiling photographer who has bravely accepted the job of capturing her portrait.
Diana moved to Mexico in 1957 with her husband, the love of her life, New York Times correspondent Paul Kennedy, and became familiar with local restaurants and markets while entertaining the great and the good.
After he died in 1966, Diana began teaching Mexican cooking in New York before landing a deal for a recipe book. Nobody at her publishing house expected her to take the assignment so seriously, meticulously interviewing chefs, market holders and family cooks.
Diana never married again. “I’m not the marrying type,” she says, outlining her belief in the long term benefits of a series of short-lived affairs.
She is such a wonderful character you wish Carroll had asked her a few more questions.
We only hear a few tantalising details about Diana’s younger days, where she describes herself as an
“unguided missile”.
I imagine there is feature film to be made (a gritty feminist drama, a thriller or even a knockabout comedy), about her war experiences as a “Timber Girl”.
“Because I wouldn’t salute anyone, I couldn’t join the army or the navy,” she drops in, casually.