Review of Secretary (2002) by Claudia F — 12 Feb 2009

I'm not sure what I think about this film.

They do portray the two people in the slave/master relationship as being deeply messed up, which means I can see why some people find it offensive. But at the same time, so is everyone else in the film.

James Spader is good in this, because at the start he makes me feel even more awkward about watching his character, than I did with Maggie Gyllenhaal who was supposed to be the awkward one, which I think managed to remove one of the layers of power imbalance, re: boss sleeping with his subordinate, which would ordinarily make the general topic squicktastic.

Magie Gyllenhall may have been even better, and I think she should really consider begging the make-up artist and costumer from this to help her out in the real world because they make her look awesome, especially at the end, and it's such a change from how she looks at the start.

I'm still trying to figure out what the take-home message was from this; possiblities include 'accepting who you are makes you feel better' and 'sleeping with your boss might get you the house of your dreams'.

A thing I did like was how all the characters got to develop (with the possible exception of Peter), including Lee's mother and father and the paralegal. I also liked that the film was both sensible and not serious about sex, which makes a change from most films, which treat "normal sex" with a terrifying po-faced seriousness and "not-normal" sex as a joke. This film doesn't fall into either trap.