Grounded by a sterling performance from Primetime Emmy Award winner Julia Garner, The Assistant might be described as Nine to Five directed by Ken Loach. Focused, controlled, and claustrophobic, this drama quietly seethes with #MeToo resonances. Read on, and we’ll let you know how to watch The Assistant online from anywhere.
Released: January 21 2020
Director: Kitty Green
Cast: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini
Run time: 1 hr 27 mins
Rating: R
The Assistant follows Jane (Garner) throughout the course of one exacting day as a junior assistant at a film production company in New York. She’s the first one in and the last one out, stoically juggling a multitude of menial tasks in an alienating environment. An atmosphere of hushed silence prevails: clients and colleagues conduct themselves with somber indifference, while Jane’s boss – whose muffled menace we only hear on the phone – is using his position to sexually manipulate any attractive talent.
Directed, written, and edited by Kitty Green, on the surface it’s a film without a narrative, detailing the minutiae of Jane’s workday in a way that’s almost avant-garde. The cinematography is crisp, the color palette is sterile, and the framing of each shot oppressively ordered. We keep waiting for something to disrupt the stasis, but it doesn’t. What’s communicated instead is how power operates most effectively when it’s hidden, helping to facilitate a culture of complicity. In The Assistant, Jane’s antagonist is an unseen, shadowy figure - not unlike the villain in 2020’s The Invisible Man.
Also starring Matthew MacFadyen, Jon Orsini, and Patrick Wilson, The Assistant is charged with contemporary relevance, while also offering a hugely sympathetic turn from Julia Garner as Jane. If your indie senses are tingling now, read on as we detail how to watch The Assistant online from anywhere.
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How to watch The Assistant from outside your home country
If you find yourself abroad on business or taking a belated vacation and want to watch The Assistant, it’s still possible to rent it from your preferred platform, no matter where in the world you find yourself.
Say you're in a country where it’s not available to stream online. Downloading a VPN will allow you to connect to your usual service and access its roster of on-demand films and TV shows. By changing your IP address, you can effortlessly view content that would otherwise be regionally restricted.
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