The Assistant (2019)

The Assistant Movie Review

Bear Hands (author)

Hubby Bear

In which we ask a film to kindly explain itself, and it quietly declines

Let me begin with the lone, radiant highlight of The Assistant: Julia Garner. I admire her enormously. In fact, my respect for her talent is so unwavering that I found myself wishing, quite sincerely, that she had been given an entirely different film to inhabit — one with narrative intention, perhaps, or even the faintest pulse. Alas, that is where my positive commentary ends. The rest of my feelings toward this film can be summed up as: “Are you quite sure this is the final cut?”

There is an irritating tendency among certain cinephile circles — you know the type; they own a  black turtleneck and believe it grants them the power of insight — to elevate any vaguely inert film to the level of “deceptively simple.” The Assistant is precisely the sort of production that fuels such dinner-party theatrics. Its lack of overt direction is not, contrary to the hopeful claims of those who enjoy sounding clever, a sophisticated artistic choice. Rather, it functions as something of a blank canvas upon which the viewer is invited to project meaning, presumably because the film itself couldn’t be troubled to provide any.

Now, let it be said: I am unironically fond of films about mundanity. I believe the boring, the quiet, and the uneventful can be deeply moving when handled with purpose. But even the most minimalist storytelling must still be about something. The Assistant, by contrast, feels like a documentary masquerading as a narrative feature — and, to make matters worse, one that has draped itself over Julia Garner’s shoulders like a decorative shawl, hoping her presence alone might lend it the prestige it otherwise lacks.

The result is a film perfectly engineered for that particular breed of pseudo-intellectual who delights in arriving at a party armed with a handful of Wikipedia quotations and a look of smug, knowing restraint. They will insist the film is a masterpiece of subtlety. They will praise its restraint, its austerity, its “bravery” in doing absolutely nothing for long stretches of time. One imagines the film nodding politely along, as if flattered to be discussed at all.

In truth, The Assistant feels less like a cinematic experience and more like being seated next to someone on a train who refuses to explain why they’re crying — a situation that is, in its own way, compelling, but hardly what one would call enjoyable.