Secretary

Rating:
Summary: Sweet romance, with manacles
Review: Fans of Mary Gaitskill who expect to see a film treatment of her short story "Secretary" are in for a surprise here. Though the screenplay takes inspiration from specific character and plot elements in the original story, it playfully riffs off these elements to spin a different tale altogether. The result is a frank, quirky, and ultimately charming film situated in a Gaitskillian milieu (of outsiders and other maladjusted types who act out their longings through underground sexualities), minus the crushing melancholia and stir-crazy alienation that suffuses Gaitskill's emotional universe.

Case in point: The lawyer in Gaitskill's original story was manipulative, exploitive, and ambitiously sleazy. As played by the ageless James Spader, the same character in the movie is an attractive, solitary brooder, a downright Byronic figure half-tormented by his sado-dominating impulses and by the perverse tenderness and concern he feels for his new admin. The title character in the short story was a doleful little shut-in, both paralyzed and enabled by her shame and humiliation, only just awakening to the funerary atmosphere of her alcoholic, argumentative household. Maggie Gyllenhaal's secretary, on the other hand, is a plucky heroine who only grows pluckier and more heroic over time. Encouraged by kind if odd pep-talks and loving wallops from her boyfriend-da-boss, she goes in search of her own inner strength, breaking away emotionally from her clingy, enmeshed family, coming out as a sex-positive bottom in the eyes of the greater S/M/D/S community. The pathological self-laceration of her initial shame and grief evolves into a aesthetic, even religious, appreciation for erotic forms of pain and submission. However publicly empowered and self-actualized as Gyllenhaal's character gets, she never loses sight of the fact that her physical proclivities are founded on that holiest and most personal of experiences: romantic longing. She pursues the conflicted Spader with unwavering confidence and ultimately monogamous devotion, inspiring him to liberate his mind and heart from the internalized stigma of social disapproval.

Overall, _Secretary_ is an excellent, well-executed film. I fell short of giving it 5 stars only because of some egregiously cartoonish scenes of in-your-face satire that marred the first half-hour. This kind of overbaked exhibition of the weird might once have impressed recent high school graduates of 1995 or so, but it now seems like a cliched marketing device which ought to have no place in an indie flick striving to convey true art and "edge." Thankfully, sophomoric irony dissipates as soon as the film enters the lush relationship scenes between Spader and Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal's performance is particularly rewarding to watch, as she shifts like a genuine pro through multifarious degrees of vulnerability, suffering, grief, outrage, epiphany, joy, apathy, lust, offbeat shyness, vampish daring, self-knowledge, fidelity, belief, and love.


Rating:
Summary: i'm very fond of you as well.
Review: Secretary follows Lee Holloway, played with perfect naivety by Maggie Gyllenhaal, a young woman recently released from a mental institution for self-mutilation. Her release sends her back to the same environment that helped to push her to cut herself in the first place, a home environment complete with an alcoholic father, an well-to-do yet overbearing mother, and a newly wedded sister. While they seem to have the best of intentions, her family is cause for frustration, and her residence with them causes her to be pushed to battle herself on a day to day basis. Upon arriving home, one of the first things she greets herself with is her box of personal weaponry, a box of sharp objects to puncture familial wounds that never seem to heal.

Despite being twenty-four, Lee is very much still a child, living in a purple room adorned with twinkle lights and glitter. She wears ruffles at her sister's wedding, safety floating armbands in the pool, and purple raincoats. She uses a ballerina figurine to cut herself. She has spent her life living with her parents and with mental wardens, providing her with an environment of constant structure and a safety net that curbs her growth instead of fostering it. Upon her release back into her home of repetitive protection, Lee decides to begin her independence by questing for a job. Like a perpetual adolescent, her mother drives her to the law office, where she encounters the lawyer E. Edward Grey [the perfectly restrained James Spader].

Here, in what is more a beautiful lair of opulence then an office, she is confronted with a meticulous, tense, and very technical lawyer who quickly prompts her with a creepy questionnaire of her personal life. By passing his test of questions, Lee is granted the tasks of getting him coffee with either too much or too little sugar, typing letters, and helping him hide from past lovers. She turns out to be an excellent employee; clean, responsive to structure, obedient, and willing to do anything, including get into a dumpster, for her superior.

Mr. Grey shows interest in her, in his own vague, detached, and fetishized sort of way, and is soon prompted to push their relationship further after discovering that Lee has a boyfriend, another male connection, outside of the workplace. Peter, [a loveably earnest Jeremy Davies] whom she is obviously with solely for reasons that he is stereotypically accessible and 'nice', is the perfect man that would garner her parental approval. After this discovery, Mr. Grey soon decides it is time to pay a little more attention to Lee, and does so by using one of the Red Sharpies he has lined up on his perfectly arranged desk. With a typewriter, typos are bound to occur, and, despite her efforts to be a good secretary, Lee makes them. She makes them quite a few times.
This is very bad behavior.

Mr. Grey takes a time out from tending to his beautiful and fragile orchids to reprimand Lee, by spanking her as she reads her err letter aloud. As they ascend into a sadomasochistic relationship, Mr. Grey blurs the line between his role of superior by exercising a fatherly manner around her; spanking her when she misbehaves, demanding she cease inflicting pain upon herself, and figuring out the proper amount of control he needs to take over her to be most conducive to her growth as a person. He is her superior here, filling in the role her father never could, and takes on that role by projecting his own desires into what he is able to read as her most basic needs. Without consciously drawing attention to it, Mr. Grey is able to figure out exactly what is plaguing Lee by simply being around her, without researching too far into who she actually is, without analyzing her as those in the mental institution surely did. Unlike her wardens or her actual parents, Mr. Grey is able to know Lee as a lover automatically knows a lover; through simply being present with her, he is able to know all he could ever need to know about who she is, and ultimately what a lover can provide her.

These acts of power he exerts upon her might be easily misread as wrongfully oppressive, yet they are actually motivators for her to become a fully actualized, fully independent individual. Lee clearly derives pleasure from his doing this, clear right away in her acceptance of its presence. Walking around an office carrying papers in her teeth is acceptable for Lee, for it is equally as erotic for her as it is him, and is therefore empowering. The pain he provides for her is the remedy for her self-mutilation, a substitute that proves be healthy due to the enjoyment associated with it. Mr. Grey goes from a girlish crush, a man of power so easily adored by a young girl, to a woman's fantasy; she masturbates to his image in a surreal environment with bright floral imagery, conveying this power she is gaining from his own, by saying, in an entirely satisfied manner, 'I'm your secretary'. She has been provided with the proper catalyst she has needed all along to progress to a state of adulthood, and is initiated into that state by their sexual play. Lee begins a fragile girl, and is able to emerge as a fully independent woman when in the throes of her self-affirming relationship with Mr. Grey.

A problem in this blissfully detached relationship arises when Mr. Grey becomes victim to the majority mentality that these ways of expressing their love are bad, and terminates her in efforts to rid himself of what he calls 'disgusting behavior'. She is soon forced to try and win his approval once again, and the two must once again challenge each other to meet their ritualistic wants.

Flawlessly directed by Steven Shainberg, Secretary is an exercise of control and desire, an examination of character and of relationships. It documents the growth two individuals experience when they are able to encounter a person who is the embodiment of their complement, their exact need in a lover. So tense it can't help but be erotic, the steadicam in this gorgeously photographed film floats through a world that equates restraint with connection, that pinpoints the closeness that exists between strangers, and provides a very tactile intimacy with which these characters are non-discriminately viewed. Impeccably designed, replete with bold yet muted colors and an absolutely ideal score, Lee and Mr. Grey are granted the grace of being able to participate in a beautiful relationship of consensual pleasure, of equal power, and of true fulfillment. Secretary is able to show an understanding between two people who agree to meet each other's challenges and wants, juxtaposing the forceful with the tender, the violent with the sweet, making for a film of personal growth and sadomasochism that ends up a pleasurable, darkly comic, and surprisingly subtle film.

Rating:
Summary: I love this flick so much.
Review: I have seen this movie over 15 times since its release. I just hope hollywood makes this type of movie. This movie shows its originalty. James Spader is huge now after this flick. Making tv shows and other independent films. Maggie G. is a good actress. A must see!

Rating:
Summary: He spanks,she thanks
Review: When i heard what this move was about,i had the "normal" image
of leather,whips and chains,however this is not the case here.
The movie focused mainly on a relationship that developed
between two people that eventually turned into a love affair.
The s&m basically involved the lighter side of this sexual
practice in the form of spanking.The spanking scenes were not
terribly violent or distasteful at all.James amd Maggie were
terrific in this movie and were very convincing as two people
who had issues with their own sexual needs and finally gave in
to them,in fact Maggie appeared to really "enjoy" being
punished in her role, she was so good at it! I found the movie
to be a pleasent surprise and thought it was well done
considering it dealt with some of the darker side of human
sexuality.Some of what took place in this movie is not as
uncommon as people may think.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite movie
Review: This movie has less to do with the ups and downs of sex than it has to do with strength,need,and relief. You have Lee who just got out of a mental institution because of her SI. Everyone around her is coming undone,or is undone,yet they are trying to coddle her into being well-which isn't going to happen when they can't even admit that they aren't well. But then there is Mr.Grey :arrogant,admittedly shy,and strong all at once.Instead of fear and uncertainty,he gives her understanding and an outlet to express herself. This outlet is sadomasochism(actually dominance and submission),but whatever works. Lee opens up in a way that she,and everyone else,probably never thought possible.
The only problem with the movie is that it could be triggering for those who are really sensitive to material pretaining to SI.

Rating:
Summary: A Story of a Perfect Match
Review: In a nutshell, this movie is about getting exactly what you want from the exact person you want. By meeting each other's needs and exceeding each other's expectations, Lee and Edward each thrive. Maggie Gyllenhaal's (Lee) transformation is amazing. She morphs from the girl you would avoid on a bus to the girl you want to take home to meet the family.

Plus, the movie is just sexy as hell. Some may be disturbed by the light kink and S&M. However, if you look beyond the slightly outside the norm sexual practices, all you see is a love story. I adored the movie and had to buy both the DVD and soundtrack. It's a real treat.