<em>The Assistant</em> and the Messes Women Clean Up
Kitty Green’s new film portrays the cover-up of abusive behavior as both a menial everyday task and a slow process of desensitization.
There’s a pattern in that recurs from the minute Jane (played by Julia Garner) arrives at her Tribeca office and flicks on the fluorescent lights one by one. Jane seems tranquilized, but not from tiredness. Before anyone else arrives, she starts the process that will define her day: cleaning up the filth that her boss, a bellicose and seemingly predatory film producer, has left behind. Over the course of the 90-minute film, Jane sweeps donut crumbs from coffee tables and scoops coffee cups into the trash. She picks up a delicate gold hoop earring from the floor of her boss’s office. She puts on rubber gloves to scrub
