Secretary (2002)

★ 6.8 1h 51m 1,874 votes IMDb

A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.

Secretary

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Cast

James Spader
James Spader as Mr. Grey Age 66 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA James Todd Spader (/ˈspeɪdər/ SPAY-dər; born February 7, 1960) is an American actor. He is known for often portraying eccentric and morally ambiguous characters. He began his career in critically accl...
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lee Holloway Age 48 · Lower East Side, New York City, New York, USA Margalit 'Maggie' Ruth Gyllenhaal (born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and...
Jeremy Davies
Jeremy Davies as Peter Age 56 · Saugus, California, USA Jeremy Boring (born October 28, 1969), known professionally as Jeremy Davies, is an American film and television actor. He is known for playing Ray Aibelli in Spanking the Monkey (1994), Corporal Timo...
Lesley Ann Warren
Lesley Ann Warren as Joan Holloway Age 79 · New York City, New York, USA Lesley Ann Warren (born August 16, 1946), is a Golden Globe Award-winning, Oscar nominated American stage, film and television actress and singer. She has appeared in more than sixty films, including...
Stephen McHattie
Stephen McHattie as Burt Holloway Age 79 · Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada Stephen McHattie (born February 3, 1947) is a Canadian stage, film and television actor. He is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Manhattan, New York, USA..
Patrick Bauchau
Patrick Bauchau as Dr. Twardon Age 87 · Brussels, Belgium Patrick Nicolas Jean Sixte Ghislain Bauchau (born 6 December 1938) is a Belgian actor best known for his roles in the films A View to a Kill, The Rapture and Panic Room, as well as the TV shows The Pr...

Audience Reviews

Wuchak 5/10 Mar 25, 2018
Dominance and submission at the office (um... no)

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-

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