The Assistant (2019)

It is mesmerising watching Julia Garner as Jane, assistant to a busy and important film somebody, going about her work, delivering to desks scripts and bagged lunches, being receptive to muted anger over the phone, and picking up after others - let's face it, acting like a mother - but these tedious tasks are labours of love, it turns out, because this assistant has aspirations for something better and this wee slip of a movie, telling just odd minutes of Jane's working life with clinical office visuals and sparse dialogue, doesn't need extra runtime or drama to articulate so sharply such a common abusive corporate relationship that is nowadays so unmistakeable, undeniable but still one extremely hard to extricate oneself from.

★★★★☆

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