Secretary is a quirky comedy drama with the brilliant Maggie Gyllenhaal as a mentally disturbed young woman who starts working for James Spader's manipulative lawyer.
Lee (Gyllenhaal) has been released from an institution and goes back to her wildly dysfunctional family. Her alcoholic dad and spaced-out Mum fight constantly, while her sister is oblivious to all, but her new husband. Lee gets a job at Mr. E. Edward Grey's (Spader) law firm, where he has a permanent sign 'Secretary Wanted' which he lights up when they inevitably leave. Mr. Grey notices Lee is a shy girl with serious issues, an impression confirmed when he sees the plasters on her legs from deliberately cutting herself. Grey is a difficult man who needs to dominate his employees and this hasn't made for happy working relationships up until now, but Lee likes to be dominated. When Grey uses typing errors on her part to bend her over his desk and spank her, the die is cast for an unusual love affair. Secretary is directed by Steven Shainberg and adapted from a short story by Mary Gaitskill by Shainberg and Erin Cressida Wilson. It subtly articulates a forming relationship between two people with weirdly complementary sexual proclivities using quirky humour and understatement. It doesn't play down the very real sense of lust and eroticism, but there isn't much here for the dirty mack brigade and it's all the stronger for that.
Gyllenhaal is simply superb as the delicate flower, who isn't as delicate as she seems, while the reliable Spader is let down by the characterisation of Grey who is never explained - he is left an enigma. The film won a Special Jury Prize for Originality at Sundance and it's tone of darkness mixed with innocence and humour is certainly an original concoction, if not an entirely successful one.
