In the trailer for “The Assistant,” we never get to see the boss of Julia Garner’s character, only hear his voice. But we have an idea who he could be.
Garner stars in the film from writer and director Kitty Green, who interviewed several former employees and assistants of Harvey Weinstein and used their experiences as an inspiration for her screenplay based on his #MeToo scandal.
“Whatever’s going on, you can tell me, that’s what I’m here for,” a calming HR representative tells the young Garner. “It’s a tough job, but I can see you’ve got what it takes.”
“The Assistant” follows one day in the life of Jane (Garner), a recent college graduate and aspiring film producer, who has recently landed her dream job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. Her day is much like any other assistant’s – making coffee, changing the paper in the copy machine, ordering lunch, arranging travel, taking phone messages, on-boarding a new hire. But as Jane follows her daily routine, she grows increasingly aware of the abuse that insidiously colors every aspect of her workday, an accumulation of degradation against which she decides to take a stand against, only to discover the true depth of the system into which she has entered.
Garner’s character becomes witness to a cavalcade of young, pretty actresses making their way into her boss’s office, though we never see her boss himself, just hear his voice.
Garner stars alongside Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jon Orsini and Noah Robbins. Green also produced the film with Scott Macaulay, James Schamus, P. Jennifer Dana, Ross Jacobson.
Bleecker Street acquired “The Assistant” after it premiered at Telluride and is releasing it in theaters on Jan. 31. Watch the first trailer above.
For the record, a previous version of this article said that Kitty Green directly worked for Weinstein. Her screenplay is just based on the experiences of other Weinstein employees. We regret the error.