Kitty Green

(On Cable TV, September 2021) There’s a comforting idea that evil (for lack of a better word) is aberrant, exceptional and even flamboyant — the romantic myth of the outlaw crossed with the conviction that evildoers are working on their own. But real-life examples abound to show that many kinds of evil need systemic support, even logistics. The obvious inspiration for writer-director Kitty Green’s The Assistant has to be the most stomach-churning details that emerged from the Harvey Weinstein scandal — that while he was the one accused of sexual abuse, there was an entire support system facilitating these things for him — booking hotel rooms, talking young women into doing what he expected and, obviously, turning a blind eye to whatever was happening even as everyone knew it was happening. The film takes us within that kind of support system, through the viewpoint of a young assistant who pieces together the little pieces of her strenuous job into a portrait of ongoing, tolerated abuse. If you’re looking for plot, that’s roughly all you’ll get: Aside from a predictably ineffectual attempt to raise the alarm, The Assistant is slow cinema at its most excruciating — long shots, oppressive fluorescent hum in lieu of soundtrack, quotidian minutiae filmed in banal cinematography. I had most of this review drafted in my mind ten minutes after the beginning of the film and not much happened afterward to change it. Of course, that’s the point of the film: Evil-sustaining systems are revolting but boring, and it’s easy to convince ourselves that the minutiae itself is morally neutral. It’s really not a pleasant film to watch: hermetically centred on a single character (the rather good Julia Garner, able to sustain interest for an entire film), it’s intentionally cramped, ugly and inconclusive. No character, male or female, is meant to be admirable — at best they’re victims rather than oppressors or enablers. As much as I can’t imagine enthusiastically rewatching The Assistant a second time, I have to acknowledge its very specific intent and execution, successfully approaching a difficult theme at an unusual angle.