Movie Review: Secretary
This was a fun rewatch. I remember seeing Secretary almost two decades ago and finding it delightfully scandalous. It holds up for the most part though there are definitely some elements that haven’t aged well. I don’t mean the BDSM or gender or mental health stuff either. The biggest negative for me were some of the artistic choices in its presentation.
But before I nitpick, a quick recap for the uninitiated. Secretary is the story of a young woman named Lee who struggles with depression and self-harm addiction due to an unstable home life. She is played by Maggie Gyllenhaal who effortlessly infuses the character with an endearing wide-eyed sort of “girl next door” innocence. After leaving a mental hospital she sets out to get her first job and finds herself taking a position as a secretary at the office of the fastidious attorney Edward Grey (there’s that last name again…) played wonderfully by James Spader. Honestly there is no ASMR channel on YouTube or Twitch that can compete with that man’s voice.
The relationship between Edward and Lee gradually evolves into a dominant/submissive dynamic. To Lee’s surprise, this brings her a great deal of personal satisfaction and cures her of her cutting habit. Edward, however, is ambivalent. The film hints at his own dark history with previous secretaries and ex-wives but leaves most of it to our imagination. The core conflict between he and Lee is really about embracing an unconventional sort of love and coming to grips with one’s own demons.
My two biggest criticisms are the stylistic choices that date the film horribly and the unnecessarily schmaltzy ending. Regarding the latter, I think the perfect note would have been them just returning to working together in the office while embracing their kink. While I liked Lee’s final “challenge,” I wasn’t wild about the final resolution being such a fairy tale, not after 100 minutes of splendid dark and weird fun.
The style issue relates to a number of unfortunate directing choices. The narration was totally pointless. The music was really awful. It sounded like 90’s softcore porn music and undercut some of the better properly sexy moments. I’m not generally in favor of fan edits of movies but I know for certain someone with a bit of skill and time could recut this into a near masterpiece. As it stands the combined effect of the direction is a very “on the nose” feeling, like the production team really wanted to emphasize how naughty the movie is.
It’s funny because even for its time Secretary is pretty tame. Not a decade later 50 Shades of Grey came out and put to rest any notion dominant/submissive relationships are some sort of tiny niche. Secretary at least is a much smarter work with none of the snort-worthy self-insert fan fiction silliness of 50 Shades (or Twilight for that matter). Likely the most controversial element of Secretary isn’t so much the sexy office play as Lee’s strong personal desire to be Edward’s submissive and the fact that this cures her of her mental health problems (he literally just commands her to stop and she does lol).
You do not see many female protagonists like Lee nowadays — a woman explicitly seeking a man’s approval and reveling in her subservient position. The film even openly pokes fun at feminists towards the end. Yet Secretary is not really a political movie, certainly not a conservative one. One of its main themes is that we can find freedom in unusual ways of living. In that sense it is actually very progressive and empowering. It’s also quite heartwarming and at times surprisingly funny.
If you’re up for an interesting sort of love story, give this a watch.
Grade: B+
