Telluride at Dartmouth 2019 "The Assistant"
Based on the Harvey Weinstein scandal, this much-anticipated new film follows a day in the life of an assistant to a disgraced Hollywood producer.
Cinema is packed with tales of powerful men. Australian writer-director Kitty Green turns her camera lens on another figure—the young woman who makes one such man's life possible. In this drama Julia Garner plays the title role, as a new assistant working the desk of a domineering film executive, conscientiously managing his schedule, cleaning his office and answering his phones. Over the course of one day, what seems like a humdrum if demanding entry-level job becomes treacherous, as she finds herself enmeshed in the executive's messy personal life, belittled by her male peers and increasingly aware of their boss's predatory aims with the hopeful actresses who float into his office.
As in her provocative documentaries Casting JonBenet (2017) and Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013), Green brings a sharp, yet nuanced angle to a story we thought we already knew. She spent 10 months scouring thousands of stories in the public record and talked to scores of people to create a composite of a real-life Weinstein underling. The resulting narrative drama provides an inside look into the world of a man who shaped movies and careers for decades.
