Number One (Numèro Uno) (aka Woman Up) (2017)

In what is a really strong engrossing start to the film, a group of feminists approach Emmanuelle Blachey, a business executive, with a plan to manouevre her into the top role at a government water company, but is the corporate skullduggery Blachey has to contend with at the hands of rivals for the position better or worse than the treatment she receives from her current boss and colleagues who objectify and devalue her and in one weird moment that almost derails the whole movie, let her sing to them over dinner on an oil rig? 

★★★☆☆

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Black Christmas (2019)

I like what they've done here in this clever remake of the 1974 horror, taking the original movie with its classic story of women beseiged from inside, not outside, a safehaven (a sorority house) and injecting into the story a metoo generation commentary, a context that was discernable in the original movie but not wholly intricated into the plot like it is here; but while I think the remake makes a strong and important and relevant point and makes it well about the privilege boys hold, handed to them in pretty much supernatural fashion from their white male forebears, the glossiness and smarts and the beautiful teens as well as the unrestrained finale that elicits a momentary yee-haw but then doubt and dismay at the derailment of such strong feminist commentary, render the movie a mere glossy teen slasher with good intentions, not a horror classic.

★★★☆☆

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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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