Secretary (2002)

Starring: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Steven Shainberg

Rating: R

Studio: Lions Gate Films

Review Posted: 9.26.02

Spoilers: Minor

Rating: 3.5/4

By Sara M. Fetters.

"Work Place Love and Perversion"

First things first – Secretary is not your mother’s romantic comedy. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan don’t hold hands as they descend an elevator, Cary Grant and Grace Kelly don’t watch fireworks over the French Riviera and Reese Witherspoon does not walk poodles in pink leather.

Wait – that last one might actually be possible. For in the world of Secretary, pink leather just might be kinky enough to go over, but in a way that would probably have Reese blushing from here until next Wednesday.

Granted, where Secretary goes is as by-the-book as any normal romantic comedy out there, Hanks, Ryan, Grant and Kelly included. That is, if you get past the fact Secretary is about romance between personal secretary and boss, and that said romance revolves around a growing fascination with S&M. Not exactly politically correct, and thank goodness for that. Who needs rampant pc'ing beating us over the head, especially in a comedy.

We meet Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) as she is being released from a mental institution. She isn’t so much crazy as she is battered by the surreality of her familial situation. You see, Maggie takes out her family’s stresses by cutting herself, and it was these tendencies to self-mutilation that forced her commitment.

Upon release, Maggie discovers little has changed. Other than her sister Theresa (Amy Locane) getting married – and living with her husband in the pool house – everything else is basically the same; her father (Stephen McHattie) is an out-of-work drunk, mom (Lesley Ann Warren) is overprotective and flighty while family friend Peter (Jeremy Davies) is stalker-like in his obsession to make Lee his bride.

To escape this land of the mentally unstable, Lee decides to enter the work force, determining the perfect place is in the secretarial pool. Thus she meets the stiff upper lip world of E. Edward Grey (James Spader). He’s so precise in his needs he keeps a "secretary wanted" sign permanently attached to his outside nameplate, lit up like a hotel "vacancy" sign whenever the position needs filling.

It is here that the film starts to go into decidedly uncharted waters for a romantic comedy. Heck, S&M subculture is not exactly a road most avant-garde porn films are willing to travel on a regular basis, so imagine the perverse shock involved in realizing that Secretary truly does want to go somewhere fresh, exciting and different. In a world where Scooby-Doo can make $140 million at the box office, something like Secretary is a breath of fresh air.

The fact that it’s fabulous is obviously a plus. Spader takes a character built on sexual frustration – the type of which he’s done to death – and puts a whole new spin on him. He plays Lee as if possessed by Edward G. Robinson – not from his gangster days, but from his time working with Fritz Lange in classic noirs such as The Woman in the Window. He’s clueless to how much he’s really smitten with this woman, but scared as to the potency she causes him to feel alive.

Even better is Gyllenhaal. Jake’s (Moonlight Mile, October Sky) older sister, this is a star-making performance if there ever was one. At once quiet and meek, she explodes into potent beauty as their sexual gaming accumulates. If ever an actor took a role that screamed, “look at me – I’m a superstar!” this is it. To say she amazes would be a disservice to the performance. Too bad those pesky Oscar voters will ovoid Secretary and it’s sexual power plays like the plague.

All that said, Secretary isn’t perfect. Director and screenwriter Steven Shainberg takes Mary Gaitskill’s short story to some pretty outlandish places at times, and the film’s climax seems like it climbed right out of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Also, the supporting cast is woefully underused, with only Warren making the most out of her limited screen time.

But it almost seems wrong to criticize shortcomings in a movie this original and daring. Secretary is truly one of the year’s best finds, and there isn’t really much more to say about it than that.

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