“Its always a bit stressful in the beginning. It gets easier”
I really liked this too. Whilst this is obviously a film rooted in the Weinstein scandal it actually hits on quite a few notes beyond that subject that hit me pretty hard as an office worker myself! Something I really liked was that moment of being first in the office and turning on all the fluorescent lighting and computer equipment just builds up the buzzing and mechanical background noise that is made noticable enough to seem incredibly obvious and annoying in that first scene but which presumably is something that once you spend most of your days in that environment gets tuned out to some extent into the dull throbbing of an ever-present irritant. That probably contrasts particularly with the final scene of the muted conversation (and presumably more!) going on behind closed doors. (
"Loud swearing voices and the sound of bodies falling against furniture" as The Day Today would put it!)
But I also think that the electronic whining of electrical equipment in a way plays into the manner that the employees are just other kinds of tools in the production process. They have to exist on the bland, placid, smooth surface (with the occasional hiccup that needs to be slapped down to make the malfunction stop happening and/or make the worker spring back to their proper duties) because when they malfunction they have the power to disrupt the workings of the business. They aren't adhering to their roles. For example, it was wonderful that they put in the inevitable scene of having to pull a crumpled piece of paper out of the photocopier, which was something that particularly caused me to have a kind of sympathetic PTSD reaction! (Along with the terrifying sound of the new message received alert, which insistently demands that you pay attention to something that you really might not want to, or feel psychologically ready to deal with at that particular moment)
Also, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but when the assistant goes off to her horrific (but all too relatable, especially in the hand gestures and the dominance thing of taking a call in the middle of a difficult conversation) HR rep meeting she does a
really big Information Governance no-no in an office job of not locking her computer and leaving potentially sensitive information open in a Word document on her screen for anyone passing to be able to view, or potentially to print off or change!
I have a couple of small nitpicks which do not really amount to too much compared with how well handled the film is, but there were a couple of moments that pushed things a little too far for me, when they have to get into the Weinstein-alluding material too obviously. Such as the limo driver telling the assistant that she is doing a great job just after she is brusque with him before she apologises (which is worthwhile however in suggesting that she is in danger of internalising the callousness towards using others herself through her proximity to the behaviour). And the whole cleaning stains off of the (casting) couch moment was verging on being a bit too much, although that does pay off with the "
Never sit on the couch!" blackly comic joke later on. And I could maybe have done without the relatively obscured and very briefly shown but still obviously thrusting up and down in a sexual manner shot of the bodies in the window of the office at the end. But those moments only stand out in comparison to how low key much else is, were treated with about as much subtlety as they could be whilst still alluding to them, and I guess those things are potential cliches for a reason!
Although the other moment that was a bit blunt about the issues that I
did quite like was the way that the assistant receives the mysterious package full of boxes of injections (presumably self administered stimulants?) and then the couple of shots as she puts them quickly aside before we are then shown her stacking them into the safe is done more brusquely than many of her other tasks, like it is specifically a task to get over and done with as quickly as possible because it is too blunt in its implications and cannot be easily brushed over. Which gets more amusing a scene or two later when the assistant has to take the used needles from the bins in the office (without gloves!) and put them in the biohazard bags she keeps in her drawer for proper disposal because presumably this is something that happens regularly enough that a procedure is in place for it, whether official or just something she has put in place herself!
And I kind of loved the interactions between our main character and the two other guys she shares the office with. Its minimal and they force her into interacting with the boss's wife a few times, but I like that whilst being complicit with the boss's behaviour (perhaps because of their longevity compared to the main characters "five weeks" in the job, which I agree with Persona is a bit short of a time to seem as ingrained in her routine as she is. Maybe a year would have been a bit more plausible. Also in a more general sense I was left a bit unsure of the general timescale the film was following. Is this a single day or are we seeing events across the span of a week or two condensed into what looks like a single day? Both senses seem to be more or less applicable to different scenes depending on what is needed at a specific moment, so I was left feeling that the timescale was a bit too flimsily defined to have an impact one way or the other. Which may be the biggest 'issue' that I have with the film) they do try and help their co-worker out. Albeit by helping her write out the performative boilerplate apology e-mail that presumably they have both sent when incurring the boss's wrath (and seen more negatively it can also be viewed just as much as an example of the male colleagues railroading their female one into doing the actions expected of her after her transgressions, presuming that she needs the help to do so as compared with the other male colleague being left to deal with his humiliation on his own earlier), but in some ways I found those moments when they initially wordlessly come to her side to be an interesting, if extremely small, show of solidarity too that perhaps ties in with the invitation to dine after work (and which I think also contrasts against the 'divide and conquer' approach to the female staff in the office, many of whom are just as jaded and callous towards the parade of wide-eyed/calculating naifs being preyed upon as their male colleagues. Everyone retreats into their factional niches and interacts with colleagues within their specific working sub-groups due to not having any control over the bigger picture).
As in a lot of office jobs, co-workers are just keeping their heads down whilst you get reamed out, and are glad its not them at that particular moment, but there was nothing they could do. At least nothing if they wanted to continue working there, which gets into a whole other issue that I thought was handled extremely well, of equating the assistant and her ambitions along with the other workers in the company together with the various interchangeable parade of women entering and leaving the boss's office, as all kind of semi-consciously consenting to prostitute themselves (if not their bodies sexually then their bodies and time as office workers always at the boss's beck and call) for the slim and likely self-delusional possibility that they may become one of the very few who get something out of the deal that makes it all having been worth it. But will it be worth the price that was paid, in body and soul? I guess that is something we all have to decide for ourselves.