SECRETARY ---------
Pale, gawky Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal, "Donnie Darko") leaves a mental institution in time to be a bridesmaid for her plastic perfect sister (Amy Locane), but her father's (Stephen McHattie) drinking and mother's (Leslie Anne Warren) yelling drive her right back to her self-mutilating behavior. Determined to become independent, Lee takes typing classes and applies to be Mr. Grey's (James Spader) "Secretary."
Director Steven Shainberg and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson took the germ of an idea from a short story by Mary Gaitskill and have fashioned one of the most unique films of the year featuring a star-making performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal. While Steven Soderbergh's supposed followup to "sex, lies and videotape" flopped, its star Spader delivers the goods with another speciality performance as a guy with unusual turn-ons.
Shainberg teases us by opening with a crisply dressed Gyllenhaal going calmly about her duties yoked to a black metal rod (not the end, but the middle of the story) before getting linear.
Lee is undeterred by a 'Secretary Wanted' sign that looks like a vacancy at a motel surrounded by white bulbs (with the few odd red ones for good measure) followed by the departure of the job's prior, sobbing occupant, but we certainly know we've entered an abnormal realm. Production designer Amy Danger presents a law office which looks more like a Lynchian bordello, with a long eerie corridor leading to the lawyer's den. Spader shrinks inside, tending orchids, that most sexually twisted of botanical seducers. With eyes bulging, Grey conducts a very weird interview, then gives the oddly attired Holloway the job.
At first things are quiet, but then Grey begins a series of criticisms more forceful than he personality would suggest. Odd punishments, like setting mousetraps in difficult corners and searching through trash bins, are meted out, but Lee soldiers on without complaint. Grey catches sight of the cut marks on the back of Lee's leg, questions her, and tells her to stop harming herself. Then a typo circled in red turns the punishment physical and Lee begins to blossom. When Grey's lust makes itself outwardly apparent, he lashes out at himself by banishing Lee, who returns to begin a unique campaign to take the romance out into the open.
Describe "Secretary" and it sounds sick and twisted, but the miracle of Shainberg's film is that it truly is romance. He gets his audience to yearn for a connection between these two emotionally scarred souls, no matter that it's manifested in such a kinky way. Gyllenhaal is astonishingly good as the lump of a girl who gradually turns into a sexual temptress by changing her posture and demeanor (with a little help from Majorie Bowers' costumes, but thankfully without taking off glasses). Spader is deliciously mysterious, his outwardly bad behavior hinting at the desirable, if confused, man hiding behind it. Theirs is the most unlikely and magical of screen chemistry.
A
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