Rarely have I seen such a beautifully conveyed or utterly believable love story as ‘Secretary’. In this film love is more than lust, more than sex, more than companionship; love is redemption.

Lee Holloway (the breathtaking Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a self-harmer who has just returned to her family home after several months in an institution. Her parents fight, her father is a drunk who hits her mother, and since seventh grade Lee has cut, bruised or burnt herself to externalise the pain she feels. After stumbling across a want ad Lee is excited at the idea of becoming a secretary; and though she has never worked before, lands such a position in the office of highly strung lawyer E. Edward Grey (James Spader).

Gyllenhaal fills her portrayal of Lee with a wide eyed naivety and a tangible desire to please; when she volunteers to root through a dumpster to find some accidentally thrown out papers you begin to suspect this desire may be beyond the norm. When the sight of her doing this prompts Grey to start frantically doing sit ups, you begin to wonder the extent of this man’s need to be in control. I don’t think I’m giving anything away by hinting there is something of a submissive/dominant relationship developing here. The film’s poster does have a girl wearing stockings, bent over and ‘assume the position’ written underneath. Indeed it seems the sadomasochistic side of the protagonists’ relationship is all that is ever talked about in relation to this film, which is a shame.

This aspect of the couple’s behaviour is shown, but mostly in one amusing central montage set to Leonard Cohen (one of the many great uses of music in the film) involving Gyllenhaal performing various tasks round the office in ‘unusual’ ways. There can be a certain sense of discomfort in the way Grey treats Lee; I speak specifically of the first time he spanks her. Though the filmmakers are careful to show tenderness as well as violence in the act they also show us the extent of the bruising on Lee’s bottom. You can’t help but feel there must be some sense of a troubled self harming girl transferring the infliction of pain from her own hands to those of a lover.

This is what’s so wonderfully daring about the film. How do you convince an audience that this S&M romance is true love when the girl is so childlike and fragile, and has a history of cutting herself? Further to that, it is more than suggested that this is not the first secretary Grey has nurtured this kind of relationship with; and that his behaviour hasn’t always been motivated by love.

Lee’s desire, her active pursuit of this treatment, even after Grey has backed off, goes a long way to assuage our fears. As does her development from an awkward child dressed in an ill-fitting blue bridesmaid’s gown or purple hooded poncho into a vision of glamour, poised and polished like a 1940’s starlet. The relationship allows her to escape from her home life and throw away the implements she uses to hurt herself, it allows her to be free and become a woman. It is also important to realise that this is only one part of the love that is growing between these two misfits. A man, who is aroused by receiving a dead worm in the mail, is clearly meant for the girl who was aroused by sending him a live one the day before.

Interestingly enough the plot follows a fairly typical romantic comedy pattern. I’m not sure if I mentioned this is a kind of comedy, but it is, and can be very funny. The comic style being more ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ than ‘The Wedding Planner’, I particularly liked Lee’s self help audio tape ‘Coming out as a submissive/dominant’ and Grey telling Lee only to eat four peas and one scoop of mashed potato for dinner. In this romcom pattern, a romance (albeit an unusual one) is beset by obstacles, which are conquered before the final scene (after the inevitable third act bust up) where the lovers realise they are meant for each other. Whereas Grey has always seen his desires as a perversion Lee recognises, in this case, they are one part of a great love. Love, sex, passion, perversity, violence, tenderness; what they find is rich, beautiful and real.

That we totally buy into it is largely to the credit of Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay (based on Mary Gaitskill’s short story) that gently leads us through their love story with genuine emotional pull and subtle flashes of a connection almost incomprehensible to everyone outside of these two.

Director Steven Shainberg creates a world not quite within our reality. He uses vivid colours, sets and costumes and the effect is not dissimilar to the work of Wes Anderson in films like ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ or ‘Rushmore’. With it’s artificial lighting and fantasy sequences it has a theatrical quality which allows us to act as voyeur. In this unreality the rules of love are perhaps different from our own.

The central performances here are faultless. Lee and Grey are damaged and this is strongly conveyed in Gyllenhaal and Spader’s performances. The sexual elements of their relationship are overshadowed thanks to their measured portrayals of two very sweet, lonely and longing characters. Gyllenhaal is of course the real revelation here; and to deliver such an assured and complex turn in her first leading role is astonishing.

This film provides us with an insight into a true love story. Not a Hollywood love story where the leads fall in love simply because they’re both beautiful and have bickered a lot in the first act; but one where they need and complete each other. Lee sums it up herself:

“In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him.”

In being allowed into this world where pleasure and pain are two sides of the same feeling, the emotional pay off at the end of the film when Lee has proved her love unequivocally, is magical.

Highly recommended viewing

Hmm, good review - I really want to see this rather than be stuck at work. Thanks for posting...

very good review, zoe.

i thought this was a very touching movie, a real love story of a kind that we don't often see. as you say, it is not about the beautiful, bickering leads of so many hollywood movies but the emotionally stunted, repressed misfits of real life and watching their love grow was a beautiful thing.

i started off thinking gyllenhaal was going to play a typical 'kooky' character and was wary of her self harming but i found her hypnotic and was drawn in by her performance. spader has a menace about him that was used perfectly here and we are left uncertain as to how we are supposed to feel about him until the very end.

i watched secretary high over the pacific ocean on a flight back to england. accumulated jetlag, general tiredness and high altitude red wine left me in a slight daze and meant i was easily sucked into the dark ambience of the film. when it finished i was charmed and excited and also a little bit in love with maggie gyllenhaal.

Did anyone else, at the end of the film, still feel unconvinced/wary of how dedicated to her he really was?

Excellent review there Zoe, and here's my 6 pence (none for Riker)

I thought that sure there was the crutch/dependancy issue for each of them, thats part of any communication channel - be it love, bully or query.

Not only is this film highly erotically charged, it does it with no obvious nudity or patronising sex scenes. It plays with the apathy the viewer grows with the characters and exploits your understanding of BDSM (which was about 1 episode of CSI for me). It opens your eyes to self-hurt in a way that ain't JollyHoax, Your really feel the different people existing - And there are loads of characters in there! The dad, the ex/boyf, the ex/secretary, the mother and the sister. All miniscule parts, all required parts.

In the rankings I would place this in a love story category next to the Big Lebowski's comedy rating.

Arousing both physically and mentally, a film that each sex can watch and enjoy equally.

-m0r

No, because the mere fact that he had taken her away from the office and brought her to his home was convincing enough. He seemed to be more fearful of admitting his dominance, than she was of admitting her submission, and by actually embracing it at the end meant that he was committed to her - remember the long list of women before her he had fired and let go when things started getting too heavy.

His devotion to her became clear when she asked him where he came from, and he told her. I got the feeling he had never told any of her previous incumbents, and so that was a very tender moment.