Great Film overall

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

RELEASED IN 2002 and directed by Steven Shainberg, "Secretary" is a romantic dramedy about a young woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who spent some time at a mental hospital for self-harm (e.g. cutting). She apprehends a job as a secretary to a quirky, arduous lawyer (James Spader) wherein their employer-employee bond turns increasingly sexual in a dominant/submissive way.This is the first mainline film in America to breach the difficult topic of BDSM, walking the balance beam between being either too amusing or too offensive. For those not in the know, BDSM is an overlap of acronyms: BD stands for Bondage and Discipline; DS for Dominance and Submission; and SM for Sadism and Masochism. I didn't really know the movie tackled BDSM before viewing it; I thought it was simply a romance-in-the-office type flick with maybe some kinky elements. The movie is polarizing, unsurprisingly. I read a few reviews by respectable critics and one was fascinated by it, giving it an incredible 10/10 Stars (Why Sure!), while another wrote it off as a film for sick people, granting it 1/10 Stars. Whilst I find the romance-at-the-office element interesting, I could care less about the BDSM angle. Regardless, the first half is amusing enough and Maggie is a winsome treat, but the second half gets a little too deviant and borders on porn. Yet the movie ends well with a well-intentioned message: This is a story about two people who have an affinity for DS that find each other and their relationship may or may not work (no spoilers). I suppose the movie is trying to get across that pain can be therapeutic as long as it's applied by the right hand with the right intention. Thus two people with an affinity for BDSM can develop a relationship that works, for them. But not me; no thanks. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 47 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles. WRITERS: Mary Gaitskill (short story) and Erin Cressida Wilson & Shainberg (screenplay). GRADE: C-

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as a young woman who suffers from a compulsion to injure herself. She is released from a mental hospital and movies back in with her alcoholic dad (Stephen McHattie) and neurotic mom (Lesley Ann Warren), and fights to not resume her destructive habits. Newly trained as a secretary, she applies for a position with James Spader, an obsessive lawyer whose tendency towards neurotic perfectionism makes it difficult to keep any employees. An unspoken bond forms between this two, and soon he is punishing her for mistakes made on the job and she is falling in love with him. The main reason this movie works as well as it does is it's two leads who completely sell this relationship. Gyllenhaal in particular sells the fact that this type of submission in fact empowers her by letting her direct her self-destruction into new and more productive ways.

Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) leaves institutionalization to attend her sister's wedding. She has been harming herself since the seventh grade. Her father is an abusive drunk to her co-dependent mother. She reconnects with Peter (Jeremy Davies) who had a mental breakdown of his own. She gets a job as a secretary to attorney E. Edward Grey (James Spader). She finds comfort in the menial and sometimes demeaning tasks. Eventually, they develop a special relationship.These are interesting characters. The movie keeps a sense of sexiness while maintaining a low level of tension. It would have been great to have a higher level of tension. Maggie Gyllenhaal is amazing. It just doesn't have a great sense of danger. It's not titillating. It's a nice character study but I'm looking for something more.

Lee Holloway is released from a psychiatry facility. Never having worked, she enrols in a secretarial course. She applies for a job with lawyer Edward Grey. From Day One, she senses his emotional vulnerability and seduces him. Acting as the submissive in a mild BDSM relationship.At the same time, she has a loving boyfriend who also needs her. Faced with a marriage proposal from the boyfriend, she has to make a choice.She chooses the relationship where she is the strong manipulative partner.As a backdrop, Lee's own family is in some turmoil. Does this have a critical influence on her choice? This is a credible low budget production. Has an interesting plot and makes some startling insights a decade before Fifty Shades of Grey.