Secretary

 

It was because of my reading of her new work of fiction in current New Yorker that caused me to revisit this 2002 film. Her story called Minority Report was in itself an expanded revisit by her of her original story in her book of 1988 Bad Behavior.  The film itself is a slick tidied up version, of  the original story that has not, unlike Ms Gaitskill herself aged well. This is not to diminish the performances of its two lead characters. Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lee Holloway who is undoubtedly the star of the film and James Spader as her boss, Mr Grey in his weirdly decorated office  giving a compellingly repressed performance. Her mother, played by Leslie Ann Warren trying her best to be compulsively normal in her decidedly dysfunctional family adds to the strained off kilter tone of the film. In the midst of the current  #MeToo movement the film seems trite and titilating, glamorizing sexist behavior. The corny happy ending ruins whatever pertinent social lessons might have been gleaned from this imperfect but worthy film.