SECRETARY (Steven Shainberg, 2002)

Reviewed: November 16th, 2002

Based on a short story reads the opening credits to Steven Shainberg's Secretary, one of the most vacuously offensive and incompetent films of the year. Not surprising then there is at most fifteen minutes of worthwhile material in this infuriatingly dull lump of coal. Secretary is exactly what it's trailer makes it out to be: a one-note gag that was never funny to begin with, a one-note gag which pushed to feature length renders the most inept, patently dumb handling of a serious mental disorder -- in this case masochism -- I've ever seen (though admittedly I've never endured The Other Sister). Maggie Gyllenhaal (in a brave, wasted performance) plays Lee, a young woman just released from a mental institution. Lee is the masochist in question, one whose illness manifests itself via Lee cutting herself with sharp objects, scalding herself with hot tea kettles and delivering foghorn-subtle, totally worthless, mock-coy voiceovers. The tea kettle incident is particularly telling, responsible as it is for the first in the film's long line of sickeningly reductionist explanations, i.e. Shainberg and his dimwitted cohorts implying Lee's father's brutal alcoholism is to be largely blamed for her ailment (one of Lee's first nights back from the institution her father abuses her mother, an event which immediately prompts Lee to the mentioned scalding; we also are treated to another of Lee's father's tantrums in a laughable, grainy, slo-mo flashback, arguably the most hackneyed, easy and ineffective conceit in all of cinematic language). What a pleasant fantasy world many of our filmmakers must live in, a world of black and white hues and gummy bears growing on trees and jovial fairies dancing through the night, a simple world where only the most asinine and blatant motivations for character behavior will suffice (just this year Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher explained away its protagonist's masochism as rooted in the fact she still sleeps in the same bed with her overbearing, 65+ year old mother).

Further extrapolating means telling you about the deadly boring thirty-three minute scene (every scene in Secretary is twice as long as it should be; the editor's only other notable credit is 1993's The Meteor Man-- might I suggest a career change?) in which introverted asshole James Spader (so far over the top he's back out the bottom again) seats little Maggie down on a couch and explains to her The Cause of Her Problems: 'You experience great internal turmoil and you seek to find a way to externalize that pain and so you hurt yourself and so you cut yourself and so then you like to watch the pain heal because it allows for a kind of internal healing and now that I have told you how wise I am and blown your mind with such a trite, broad explanation of a difficult mental illness, an explanation which you have probably heard at least five times a day from every psychologist and fellow astute masochist in the mental hospital you were just released from you will not go home from work today with your mom, oh no, you will walk through green grass and appreciate how beautiful everything is.' The worst bit of Secretary's reductionism -- the thesis the entire film is predicated on -- is the idea that only a domineering sadist can truly understand a masochist, only a sadist can sweep a pretty, young masochist off her feet and live together with her in blissful harmony. Granted, if a screenwriter decided to write a script exploring the inevitably complex relationship between a sadist and a masochist, that's not a bad starting point. Instead, however, imagine the most childish, perfunctory handling of that relationship by a group of mean-spirited fiends. Imagine a movie that supposes all a masochist needs to cure her illness is a strident ass-slapping by a handsome, arrogant motherfucker (after which point Ms. Masy will spend the duration of the film pining for another ass-slapping). Here is a movie that also supposes if the girl can't get the guy, if the masochist has trouble wooing the most vile sadist to help solve her problems, all she has to do is go on a hunger strike to complete said wooing. If she goes on such a hunger strike it will inexplicably turn her situation into a media sensation, her previously-abusive-but-now-kind father will stand behind her, proudly telling her before she urinates in her chair she can do whatever she wants and eventually good ol' sadist Spader himself will become so enamored by her willingness to forgo food for him, he'll run into the room, feed her a power shake and carry her off into the sunset (but not before we're treated to a penultimate perfume commercial scene where Spader -- under the guidance of soft candlelight -- slowly runs his fingers across Maggie's scarred, naked body and another where they fuck like jackrabbits while Maggie's tied to a tree).

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