The Assistant. (15.)
Directed by Kitty Green.
Starring Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins. 87 mins. Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema.
The pressing question about Harvey Weinstein is surely how did he get away with it for so long? Why did so many principled, self-righteous Hollywood stars completely fail to notice anything for over two decades? Perhaps the thing to remember with Harvey Weinstein is that he was a single issue abuser. Aside from being a prolific sexual predator, he bullied everybody. He seemed to spend every minute, of every day, being unpleasant to somebody, in some way. (Hell, even Jimmy Savile gave it a rest every once in a while to run marathons for charity.)
As such, I've always suspected his excesses were tolerated because, deep down, this fat, sweaty sleazeball appealed to Hollywood's self-image as a brutal town where the casting couch preyed on the innocent and philistine producers abused the artists. It's the time-honoured lament of the Hollywood artist; oh, the beautiful things we could do if it wasn't for Them. He got them all off the hook. Plus, they could pride themselves on having toughed it out and made it to the top.
Or maybe it's like the joke about the man at the circus whose job was to clean up the elephant dung. Asked why he didn't quit he replied indignantly, "what, and leave showbusiness."
Weinstein is the central absence of Green's compelling but low key portrait of a day in the working life of an assistant Jane (Garner) for notactuallyWeinstein in the New York offices of notactuallyMiramax. Amidst the rounds of photocopying, kitchen cleaning and message delivering she is expected to join the company blind eye turning to his abuse of two young ladies. They, like us, see nothing of this. We assume but other than an earring Jane finds on the floor of his office and a joke about not sitting on his couch, there's no hard evidence on screen. We all have deniability, even if it's implausible.
The movie's a fine demonstration of how sometimes skirting around it, can be the best way to get to the heart of the issue. Green's smartest move is not giving him a human face. He is never seen, no big-name actor gets to give us their Harvey. He an empty chair in his office, an angry voice down the phone, an intemperate e-mail. Mostly though he is the figure that they are all cleaning up after. The most telling detail is the waiting; all the people standing or sitting around waiting for him to finish.
As somebody who's never done a proper job, I have to say it was interesting seeing what it's like. Sitting on the morning tube I always wondered what it was all of you did all day in your offices, and why it seemed so earth-shatteringly important. Jane's job is basically a dogsbody, yet she's a dogsbody in a prestigious company, something she had to study hard at a good university to achieve. Everybody is excited about this great opportunity. Today she's menial, but ten years from now she'll be a producer. Since the eighties jobs, those crappy things you did to make money, have been transformed into careers, these glorious endeavours that give meaning to your existence. The Assistant is about the pain of trying to break an illusion you've bought into so hard.
Directed by Kitty Green.
Starring Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini, Noah Robbins. 87 mins. Streaming now on Curzon Home Cinema.
The pressing question about Harvey Weinstein is surely how did he get away with it for so long? Why did so many principled, self-righteous Hollywood stars completely fail to notice anything for over two decades? Perhaps the thing to remember with Harvey Weinstein is that he was a single issue abuser. Aside from being a prolific sexual predator, he bullied everybody. He seemed to spend every minute, of every day, being unpleasant to somebody, in some way. (Hell, even Jimmy Savile gave it a rest every once in a while to run marathons for charity.)
As such, I've always suspected his excesses were tolerated because, deep down, this fat, sweaty sleazeball appealed to Hollywood's self-image as a brutal town where the casting couch preyed on the innocent and philistine producers abused the artists. It's the time-honoured lament of the Hollywood artist; oh, the beautiful things we could do if it wasn't for Them. He got them all off the hook. Plus, they could pride themselves on having toughed it out and made it to the top.
Or maybe it's like the joke about the man at the circus whose job was to clean up the elephant dung. Asked why he didn't quit he replied indignantly, "what, and leave showbusiness."
Weinstein is the central absence of Green's compelling but low key portrait of a day in the working life of an assistant Jane (Garner) for notactuallyWeinstein in the New York offices of notactuallyMiramax. Amidst the rounds of photocopying, kitchen cleaning and message delivering she is expected to join the company blind eye turning to his abuse of two young ladies. They, like us, see nothing of this. We assume but other than an earring Jane finds on the floor of his office and a joke about not sitting on his couch, there's no hard evidence on screen. We all have deniability, even if it's implausible.
The movie's a fine demonstration of how sometimes skirting around it, can be the best way to get to the heart of the issue. Green's smartest move is not giving him a human face. He is never seen, no big-name actor gets to give us their Harvey. He an empty chair in his office, an angry voice down the phone, an intemperate e-mail. Mostly though he is the figure that they are all cleaning up after. The most telling detail is the waiting; all the people standing or sitting around waiting for him to finish.
As somebody who's never done a proper job, I have to say it was interesting seeing what it's like. Sitting on the morning tube I always wondered what it was all of you did all day in your offices, and why it seemed so earth-shatteringly important. Jane's job is basically a dogsbody, yet she's a dogsbody in a prestigious company, something she had to study hard at a good university to achieve. Everybody is excited about this great opportunity. Today she's menial, but ten years from now she'll be a producer. Since the eighties jobs, those crappy things you did to make money, have been transformed into careers, these glorious endeavours that give meaning to your existence. The Assistant is about the pain of trying to break an illusion you've bought into so hard.
