Posted: 09/23/2002

Secretary

(2002)

by Hank Yuloff

Dark. Sexual. Disturbing. Funny in a twisted kind of way. Whewf!

Secretary is not a movie for my parents. It is not a movie for the kiddies, either. It is a definitive R-rated movie that deals with an adult relationship…of a very unusual kind.

Maggie Gyllenhall plays Lee Holloway, a disturbed young adult who, when we first meet her is coming out of an institution that was trying to help her stop cutting herself. It is the day of her sister’s wedding and she is immediately thrown into the situation that contributed to her ending up being hospitalized in the first place: an alcoholic father, a doormat mother with zero self confidence, and a just plain mean sister. She has not been given enough tools to help her and immediately turns to her disease for the relief that the pain provides.

What she feels she needs in her life is order. Nice boring order. What she really likes about order is that with it comes an ability to submit herself to a schedule without the requirements of decision making. This comes to her in the secretarial position in the law office of E. Edward Grey. A demanding taskmaster who is fanatical about good spelling, all he asks of her is to type letters and answer the phone. Our first clue as to the kind of twisted taskmaster he can be is that the help wanted sign outside his office is permanent, like the No Vacancy sign at a hotel that lights up to give you the status of current occupancy. If you’ve ever had a boss whose tyrannical ravings are as assured as non-paid overtime you may feel uncomfortable.

Grey witnesses Holloway’s predilection for self-abuse and it triggers something in him. No longer is he mean because he is an ass, no he is mean because he has found someone who likes it when he plays the dominant.

It doesn’t take long for the relationship to progress past the “professional” stage and if you enjoy stories dealing with human sexual desires Secretary will not disappoint.

Though there are many actors in the film, 95% of the screen time is devoted to James Spader (Crash, Sex Lies & Videotape) in the role of E. Edward Gray and Gyllenhall (Donnie Darko, Cecil B. Demented). The development of their relationship is a thing of beauty to watch and if you were to change the conditions of their sexual proclivities - if perhaps they were closer to the middle of the bell curve for normal sexual behavior - this would be another story of guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back. Only here, he spanks her, sends her away and overcomes his own fear of being dominant only when she demands to be his submissive. You will see this play out on Spader’s face as clearly as the disappointment and pleasure and that is spread across Gyllenhall’s face when her employer is not giving her the pain she desires and when he is taking his hand to her perfectly shaped posterior. Both actors are top notch. You will feel all of the emotion, pleasure, and…the pain.

There is only one section towards the end of the movie (I call it the Hunger Strike section) that drags down the flow of Secretary. The rest is continuously interesting, especially for the prurient. I guess I would sum it up by saying that Secretary takes the joke we’ve all make that says “You’ve been bad and you need to be spanked” and inserts into it two people who can’t wait to make their own punch line.

I predict huge DVD sales for this one.

Hank Yuloff reserved this one month in advance. Since we don’t pay these guys, it’s nice when we can match their interests.

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