The assistant

Winner of the Prix Fondation Louis Roederer de la Mise en scène 2020, The Assistant, written and directed by Kitty Green, is a particularly accurate vision of the film industry in which some producers think they are above the law and allow themselves everything. The Harvey Weinstein affair comes to mind when discovering this film. In an environment where power and money are king, some continue to practice their profession with passion and rigor, like the young heroine of this film Jane played by the excellent Julia Garner (Ozark Series, The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), Good kids (2016)...).

Faced with a boss who takes advantage of her position to sleep with many women and harass her, Jane has no choice but to keep a low profile. The scene with the HRD shows how the entertainment environment between the oversized egos of some and the repetitive abuse of power is a gangster environment by certain individuals who would have more place in a prison than in a high-class office. The great strength of this film is not only to aim right but also to dare to tackle such a theme head on.

One will also appreciate this clinical analysis of an environment in which some people dream of working in order to have a high salary and numerous advantages linked to certain positions. Like Jane, who dreams of becoming a producer and who, despite her diplomas, is forced to start at the bottom of the ladder as an assistant without counting her hours and being at the disposal of a belligerent boss with no real moral value. So, we follow Jane's journey for a whole day. So, overwhelmed by her work that she forgets her father's birthday and to feed herself in a balanced way. Between all the duties of an assistant and the arrival of a new young female member to the team that her boss rubs shoulders with in a hotel during her working hours, the future looks bleak for Jane. The assistant is seen as a scary documentary and creates a real immersion in an exciting environment.

After two documentaries, Ukraine Is Not a Brothel (2013) and Casting JonBenet (2017), director Kitty Green takes a similar approach to fiction and delivers one of this year's strongest films. One suspects that in order to achieve such a level of reality, Kitty Green had to not only interview numerous assistants in order to draw enough material from them to create the character of Jane. The composition of Juia Garner is impressive because it only takes one look to understand that her part is lost in advance and that talking can only turn against her in a male environment in which the woman is relayed to the second row.

This film is thus perfectly in the news of a Hollywood film industry that is finally beginning to open its eyes and whose numerous testimonies have not only succeeded in bringing down Harvey Weinstein but also other personalities. These intolerable actions are not only those of producers but also of directors who allow themselves everything. In this context, we can only defend and protect Adele Hanael who accuses director Christophe Ruggia of harassment, and we will not go back over the long list of directors whose tabloids are regularly echoed in the tabloids? The assistant is a film to be discovered urgently, which has the merit of being perfectly mastered and interpreted to perfection...

The Assistant (USA;87mns)
Directed by Kitty Green
Produced by Kitty Green, James Schamus, Scott Macaulay, P. Jennifer Dana, Ross Jacobson
Written by Kitty Green
Starring Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Noah Robbins Jon Orsini
Music by Tamar-kali
Cinematography: Michael Latham
Edited by Kitty Green, Blair McClendon
Production companies: Symbolic Exchange, 3311 Productions, Level Forward, Cinereach, Forensic Films
Bellmer Pictures, JJ Homeward Productions
Distributed by Bleecker Street
Release date: August 30, 2019 (Telluride), January 31, 2020 (United States)

Seen on September 5, 2020 at the Centre International de Deauville

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