The Assistant

2020 • 87 minutes

About this movie

The Assistant follows one day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant’s but as Jane follows her daily routine, she, and we, grow increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her workday.

Ratings and reviews

I had high hopes for this. The trailer is false advertising. Sadly it's less a fictional movie and more just a reflection of our times. The film is linear with no story arch. The characters ring achingly true.

I think Julia Garner is an actor worth watching. However, this film does little to help her career. It goes no where and left me wondering where the rest of the movie was. It felt like a flat line all the way through. The plot seems to be missing.

Ignore the trailer. It makes this seem like The Assistant is a plot-driven movie with a start, middle and end. It's more of an undercurrent of a film, filled with mundane menace, where nothing really happens while everything is happening. All the drama takes place off screen - on the other end of a phone call or behind a closed door. It never spoon feeds you, just throws you in and makes you work a little to figure it out. Julie Garner is superb (as always) and if you're sick of formulaic films and are up for something more intelligent and thought-provoking, give it a go.