SECRETARY A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2002 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Steven Shainberg's SECRETARY, a film about the joy of misspellings plays like a low rent Kafka tale about sadomasochism. It's a movie for guys who secretly want to spank their secretaries into submission and for women who wish their guys would treat them nastier. And it's for art house patrons who are only happy when their movies are pushing the absolute edge of the envelope. Actually, the latter group will likely be disappointed since the movie spends more time in neutral than in any other gear, as we wait for the actors to do something demented and seriously degrading.
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal, DONNIE DARKO), a self-mutilator since the seventh grade, decides to turn her life around by applying for a secretarial position. Looking like she's nineteen and dressing like she's ninety, Lee seeks employment at the law office of E. Edward Grey, Esq. (James Spader), which looks exactly like a mortuary. Mr. Grey is an anal-retentive lawyer with a dozen red pens to circle any typographic errors.
The perpetually unhappy Lee finally discovers rapture when Mr. Grey spanks her for committing the sin of a typing mistake. After that she lives to be spanked again, which Mr. Grey cruelly denies her.
"It's very dull work," Mr. Grey warns Lee in her interview. "I like dull work," she assures him. The audience had better like it too since most of the film is deadly dull except for the few times when it is seriously weird. It does have what passes for a happy ending in the context of the story.
SECRETARY runs 1:44. It is rated R for "strong sexuality, some nudity, depiction of behavioral disorders, and language" and would be acceptable for college students and older.
The film, which played at the Sundance and Toronto film festivals, opens nationwide in the United States on September 27 2002. In the Silicon Valley it will be showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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