Despite its having won the prize for originality at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, there is nothing new or even interesting about Secretary except for its value as a possible date movie.
Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has an interesting way to deal with her suburban ennui and unhappy home life. When something goes wrong, she pulls out her childhood sewing kit and cuts herself, thereby “bringing the pain to the surface and watching it heal.” Serious stuff, right? But we realize soon enough that Lee’s problems aren’t anything a man can’t cure.
That man is Mr. Grey (James Spader, having inherited Hollywood’s sexual deviant crown from Mickey Rourke), who hires Lee as a secretary at his law firm. He is shy and seemingly sweet, despite a tendency to mete out punishment for typos and spelling mistakes.
This punishment consists of a sound spanking while the culprit reads through the evidence. As we can see, they’re a match made in heaven. We already know the rest, because from here Secretary becomes a typical romantic comedy.
A story that could have been an interesting investigation of S & M culture, the real nature of dominance and submission or the evolution of gender roles in the 21st century becomes Pretty Woman with ass-slapping.
The actors seem to be working outside their comfort zones. Maggie Gyllenhaal overacts as the dorky Lee, who only hits her stride in the sexier moments of the film, such as they are. James Spader seems to be sleepwalking his way through this one—he showed more intensity in his one-episode stint on Seinfeld. Director Steven Shainberg has a gimmicky premise that he doesn’t know what to do with and winds up scrambling for resolution.
The result is an uneven mix of what Secretary pretends to be (the subversive 21st century comedy about taboos) and what Secretary is (no racier than anything on HBO).
The only sadism here is the punishment of being forced to watch a film that is neither subversive nor funny, and the only masochism is the audience’s willingness to sit through it.
