This is of course the film whose real world inspiration was the Harvey Weinstein affair though none of that is mentioned within the film itself. In fact, the film delicately deals with the controversial subject matter by side-stepping the boss entirely so that he is never seen and the main character here is his assistant. This brilliant move ensures that the film doesn’t feel exploitative in the least and refocuses the issue on the complicity of the industry as a whole in his wrongdoings.
Jane arrives at the office in New York City before sunrise, tidying the place up and arranging matters before the other staff comes to work. We infer that she is a lowly assistant to a big shot film producer. She notices a dropped earring in his office, stows it away and cleans stains on his couch. As the other staff trickle in, we follow as she performs a variety of menial tasks: printing documents and placing copies on people’s desks, restocking the water supply, fielding questions about her boss’ schedule and so on. Her first frustration of the day comes when the boss’ wife calls and as no one else wants to answer the telephone, she is forced to do so. The wife is complaining about her credit cards being cancelled and Jane tries to be diplomatic and non-committal about something she knows nothing about. Yet moments later the boss calls her back, berating her for mishandling the situation and she is forced to write an apology e-mail. The second crisis of the day is when a young, pretty girl shows up claiming that she has been hired as a new assistant. Jane learns that she is a waitress who her boss met while on a trip and has no relevant experience at all. She becomes concerned when she is tasked with sending the girl to stay in a nice hotel and back at the office the other staff make jokes about the boss’ affairs.
As mentioned, though the boss’ voice is distantly heard, he is never seen and we only ever follow events from Jane’s perspective and the limited amount of information that she has. The entire film takes place over the course of a single day and great pains are taken to ensure that everything is grounded and realistic. It is especially satisfying to watch this on the heels of Lionheart just due to the sheer mundanity of the tasks that Jane has to do as part of an ordinary day at the office: clear paper jams in the photocopier, wash dishes, solve problems on the phone, fetch lunch for the boss as well as the other assistants in the office, and so on. It shows that film industry or not, most of the work that goes on in the office is still unglamorous and just normal. At the same time, even though we never see the boss on camera, it is obvious that the entire office revolves around him and operates according to his every whim. Every order that he issues must be followed without question, everyone is kept waiting on him hand and foot and no one ever complains if he keeps them waiting or asks them to do things that later turn out to be pointless. This is something that everyone who has ever worked in a corporate environmental can sympathize with and for this alone, I’d rank this as an excellent film.
By shifting the focus away from the malevolent yet distant boss, the film emphasizes that the sexual exploitation by men of women who are weaker than them in terms of social status and wealth is a industry-wide phenomenon that is deeply rooted in culture. Most of the male staff regard the boss’ behavior as being perfectly normal while the HR manager who Jane speaks to appears to believe that her own concern is chiefly about being personally targeted by the boss himself. A female executive appears to understand that Jane is really concerned on behalf of the women being exploited but assures her that they are benefiting from the arrangement as well. The film is even careful to show that none of the boss’ liaisons appear to be rape. The women may have been pressured due to the opportunities the boss can offer in exchange or embarrassed about it afterwards, they don’t appear to have been physically coerced. This makes it easier to understand why people like Weinstein got away with this for so long and provides a realistic answer to our nagging questions of what it was like for the people around him who knew what was going on and even helped the encounters happen, by arranging hotels and transport and so on.
The only thing that I found implausible is that I believe that the company would have found some excuse to fire Jane the moment she even tried raising her concerns. It is a certainty that contrary to whatever they try to claim, every company’s HR department exists primarily to protect the company itself and in this case, it exists to protect the boss who is clearly the star performer and money-maker of the company. In any case, I found this to be a powerful film and a great example of how art can contribute to a social movement about which so much has already been said.