New releases to watch at home
The Assistant
An “impressively chilling” drama about an assistant to a producer reminiscent of Harvey Weinstein
In this “impressively chilling” #MeToo-inspired drama, a young woman takes a job as a junior assistant at a New York-based film company, hoping it will be the first step to a career as a producer, said Mark Kermode in The Observer. There she finds herself ploughing from dawn till dusk through a series of “menial and yet weirdly demanding jobs”, in a dismal office, surrounded by casually abusive co-workers. Played by Ozark’s Julia Garner, Jane lives in constant fear of her boss – and spends much of her time trying to disguise his sleazy escapades – picking needles out of the bin; even scrubbing stains off his sofa – and fielding ever-more irate calls from his wife. Jane is a young woman who, in this toxic working environment, “has no voice”. Garner beautifully conveys her demoralisation through “posture, pose and gesture”. Although Harvey Weinstein is not named in this film, it clearly “has him very much in mind”, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. Jane’s boss is never seen; we only hear him, wheeling and dealing behind closed doors, and via the muffled sound of his volcanic rage over the phone. And the film provides insights into how Weinstein got away with his crimes: by using an “insidious, back-slapping support network” to silence complaints with threats of unemployment, and creating a workforce that churns “with collective dread”. By focusing on the “eponymous wage slave”, as well as keeping the scenes of “explicit” abuse out of shot, The Assistant is able to shed light on abusive workplaces “in all professional sectors”, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Grimly compelling, it is “the definitive film of the Time’s Up movement so far”.
Ema
A “wildly original” Chilean film about a couple who adopt a troubled child only to send him back
In the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, dancer Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo) and her much older choreographer husband, Gastón (Gael García Bernal), adopt a “troubled” four-year-old child who shuts their dog in the freezer, and sets fire to their home, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. They make the difficult decision to send the boy back to the adoption agency, then immediately regret this “admission of defeat”, and start blaming each other for it. Ema follows the couple as they go on an “odyssey of destructive sexual exploration”, in an attempt to assuage their “rage-filled guilt”.
Pablo Larraín’s refusal to “patronise” the audience with plot pointers makes the film hard to follow at the start; but once it “finds its rhythm”, this “dance-based psychodrama” becomes “quietly intoxicating”, said Kevin Maher in The Times – just like its titular protagonist. Ema is hell-bent on getting the boy back, and surrounded by her girl squad of “punkish provocateurs”, sets out on a series of “seduce and destroy” missions. One of them ends with the child’s middle-class new mother at the centre of a “decadent, all-writhing, all-gyrating lady ruck”. The sleaze factor gets quite high, but the plot twists justify the action. Ema is “the rarest kind of movie heroine”, said Danny Leigh in the FT. She is complicated and not always likeable; and some of the insults she hurls at her estranged husband are unsettlingly visceral. But all this is part of the “punk joie de vivre” that makes this film so “wildly original”.
Normal People: a triumphant screen adaptation
This “beautiful” adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, set in Ireland and following the complicated relationship between two students, is one of those rare instances when “the screen version thrashes the book”, said Carol Midgley in The Times. Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell (Paul Mescal) first meet at school, and what follows between them is the sole concern of the series, as it lays bare the euphoric highs and humiliating lows of a first sexual romance.
Connell is popular, sporty and working class; Marianne is a studious loner, from a wealthy family. Between them, they pack in “all your formative experiences”, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. Early bedroom encounters are memorably awkward; the cruelty and anxieties of school life are all there. But much like the book, the raw intimacy of the sex scenes can leave the viewer feeling uncomfortably “like an intruder”, said Judith Woods in The Daily Telegraph – and with no subplots, there’s nowhere else to look. Still, there is some respite thanks to the story being split into 12 half-hour episodes – one of many decisions made to ensure this “hermetically sealed examination of a first love” preserves its “immaculate” tone.
