Secretary (2002)

Instant Favorite.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I do not like SM, Maggie Gyllenhaal I never liked and comparing this to 50 Shades was complete deal breaker. But finally I decided to see it because of James Spider. I like him a lot. And now I'm sorry that I did not see this movie back in 2002. cause then I could use past 15 years to see it dozen more times. This movie is unbelievable. It is based on SM relationship, but it is more about love and determination to fight for what you really want. Spider is good as always, but Maggie was real surprise. I never saw her this way before. Beautiful, sweet and good actress. I underestimated her unfairly. And music done by Angelo Badalamenti, author of legendary Twin Peaks soundtrack. Movie hypnotized me completely and two hours was not long enough. I was horny, crying and laughing all at the same time. I can not recall any other movie ever had such effect on me. It blew my mind. This is one of easiest tens I ever gave and I'm miser when it comes to rating movies.10/10

Released in 2002 to a low rumble of critical attention, and touted as a film that brought BDSM to the masses, I had dismissed Secretary for quite some time as some kind of mass-appeal erotica - a 50 Shades- esque film that people drag their spouses to for some mild titillation before bedtime.Happily, I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong.What Secretary appears to be, and what it actually is, are two very different beasts, and I dare say that it was misrepresented in its marketing in an attempt to catch a wider mainstream audience - it is far from a mainstream movie, and it certainly isn't bargain-basement titillation. What is ostensibly described as 'a film exploring the relationship between a dominant man and his submissive secretary' (thank you, Wikipedia) is actually an incredibly quirky, often unsettling, and always unpredictable look at the lives of two deeply troubled individuals, and the story of how they manage to find, amidst the chaos of their individual minds, a welcoming embrace in the chaos of one another.Maggie Gyllenhaal, in the role that brought her mainstream attention, is Lee Holloway, a woman with a history of self-harm, just released from psychiatric care following a nervous breakdown. Upon her re- entry to the real world, Lee quickly falls back into her old habits after failing to deal with the stresses of her fractured family and her inadequacy relative to her sister, and in an effort to broaden her horizons, takes typing lessons and applies for a job as a secretary for James Spader's enigmatically- named lawyer, E. Edward Grey (thankfully no relation to the Grey of '50 Shades'). Lee is a tender creature, constantly battered by the harshness of her environment, and seemingly not built to weather the ups and downs of her daily life – a fragility that Gyllenhaal, to use a dreadfully clichéd but apt term, embodies. I chose my words carefully when I said that she is Lee Holloway, as from her first moment on screen it becomes truly difficult to make the distinction between the performer and the performance, and Gyllenhaal has since admitted that she took aspects of the character home with her without intending to. She strikes a deft balance between disturbing and endearing, mixing a gentle sweetness and naiveté in a coy smile and a shy glance with a darkness that is largely hidden from the audience, internalised, and manifesting in either her self-harm, or channeled into a carnal confidence in her growing experimentation with BDSM.But in BDSM, as in sensual Latin dance, it takes two to tango, and Gyllenhaal is matched and countered by a near-inconceivable level of oddity from James Spader, who performs his own balancing act in one of the best performances of his career as Lee's deeply eccentric boss – a lawyer existing solely for his work and for his delicately tended orchids. Spader's Grey is almost completely opaque in his motivations, shunning any kind of deeper emotional connection with others, and from the outset he appears to be, for lack of a better term, a complete bastard. But, wooed by Lee's almost indefatigable desire to follow commands, he one day chooses to punish her for repeated spelling errors by spanking her across his desk, a directive that she hesitantly but willingly follows. From here their relationship unfolds as Lee begins to crave this outlet for her pain and the connection she feels with Grey, while Grey himself struggles with disgust at his sexual habits, and his fear of emotional connections.The world of Secretary almost feels like a Terry Gilliam fever dream. It seems to exist in no single decade, simultaneously modern and retro in its technology and aesthetic, and Steven Shainberg's direction pushes his actors to shed all inhibition in pursuit of his bizarre pseudo-reality, and to great effect. It's a peculiar world filled with recognisable features and colourful, broken characters, but remains distinct from any single real point in time, and this style and slightly unhinged perspective helps one feel as if it's not the characters of the film that are out of place, but you yourself. The film reveals honestly from the get-go that the content found within might not be something that you're familiar with, and that it's up to you to fit in, not the other way round. One repercussion of this is the occasional feeling that the film progresses in an almost stream-of-consciousness manner, and it can be hard to decipher the motivations behind some of the more bizarre choices made by the characters, but, for all that happens, and the peculiar nature of many of the scenes, it's surprisingly easy to follow the general flow of the narrative.In saying that, Secretary isn't always an easily digestible film and can be quite dark in its themes at times, but it's an unconventional exploration of an unconventional topic, and in pulling BDSM out of the dungeon and into the office, and throwing in a good deal of quirky humour and real pathos, it throws a light on the subject and attempts to explain it, at least in this context, as a way for two alternative people with alternative tastes to find their own special place in the world at each other's side. Secretary speaks of human relationships - of fear, and trepidation, and uncertainty, and mistrust and of other such baggage that we all accumulate in life - and challenges us to reflect on the fact that regardless of the thoughts that threaten to destabilise us, be they fleeting or chronic, ingrained or accumulated, 'normality' is but a construct, and if you can find someone out there who fits you like a glove, then even the most unconventional person can hope to build normality for themselves.

This film at times was slow. Yet in those slow moments I found myself lost in thought. The acting was suburb in the sense that you can feel the awkward sexuality through the film. I'm to guess that most of us have not been in a situation such as depicted in the film. For those that have I can not answer their opinions on this film, but I at times was uncomfortable, yet intrigued. It's an unconventional story of love, and who's to judge? All kinds of different things make different people happy. Mentally disturbed and maybe a bit too dedicated of a women, but who cares as long as she's happy in the end. We should all be so lucky to have some one so dedicated to us. Hopefully we are nicer to them, but whatever works I suppose. I'm going to say this is a definite watch, but not for those who don't feel like thinking at the moment or those who are not open to a bit unorthodox sexual situations.

I'm giving this flick a 10 for a special reason. It achieves what very, very few films achieve: It successfully portrays a human-dimensioned, warm, believable, miraculous redemption. It didn't make me cry or shake me to my core. It simply gave me a tender, life-affirming hope: People can change.It's so funny to be reviewing this after the narratively anemic 'The Intern'. My comment to that flick was the diametric opposite to this one, and it comes down to this: You can't have redemption without real issues.All that, and it's actually wonderful from many other standpoints, from top (mythos/redemption) to bottom (sets/cinematography).It's truly an art flick, and a wonder to behold. Behold it!