Secretary (2002)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Lady D

  
  A progressive story from self harm to S&M, quite a strange view on the subject and the style in which it presents itself and yet something makes this film an intriguing watch. Maggie Gyllenhaal is once again comfortable with her body in this film, which must make awkward viewing… More
  A progressive story from self harm to S&M, quite a strange view on the subject and the style in which it presents itself and yet something makes this film an intriguing watch. Maggie Gyllenhaal is once again comfortable with her body in this film, which must make awkward viewing to Brother Jake at times.

• Veronique K

  
  everyone praises actors, directors whenever a good movie is made, but me, i praise the script-writer. i like to listen into the dialogues and discover some hidden emotions behind the words. ERIN CRESSIDA WILSON is the writer for this picture, and she made it happen. i liked her… More
  everyone praises actors, directors whenever a good movie is made, but me, i praise the script-writer. i like to listen into the dialogues and discover some hidden emotions behind the words. ERIN CRESSIDA WILSON is the writer for this picture, and she made it happen. i liked her choices of words so well that i had to check into imdb to search for the genuis behind those words. briefly the story is about a female masochist who meets a male sadist, and they engage in some sort of complicit sex-games without actual consummation until the man decides to call a stop before the further emotional involvement. of course, the story is NOT that simple. that is the insensitive way to generalize the movie. how about the sensitive way? an emotionally desolated woman walks out of asylum and all she finds is a mediocre home which doesn't offer her any light or hope, and she temporally dissolves all these problems by cutting herself just to feel alive. she's inconfident, un-self-assured, socially inadequate, escorted by mother and sister. her efficient typing ability is the only thing she truly takes pride in and her biggest aspiration in life is to become a secretary, a stepping stone for her indepedence. then she meets an eccentric lawyer who has an odd perfectionist insistance to red-mark on anything! he has issues with women because of some hidden un-speakable irreconciled mental trauma inside him. he spots something in her that he could instinctually recognize and resonate. he coaxes her into not cutting herself by transferring her drive for self-multilation into a titilating game of sadomasochistic sexual foreplay without actual fonication. perhaps it is more positive to get spanked on the rectrum than use a knife to cut yourself. he just gratifies her need and her want to be punished! the only actual physical touch over there is the woman's hand moving slowly just to touch the man's fingers. somehow severely repressed people need extreme ways to relent their streams of emotions or lust. if you see chloe, the atom egoyan movie, the scriptor is also erin cressida wilson, and that is a story about a call-girl looking for love in the most un-usual circumstance through cheating and lying...my point is erin cressida wilson writes stories of unusual romances on jaded, desperate, lonely people who look for love in various far-from-commonplace ways (wrong places by normal standards) because they're deprived of the capacity to obtain or feel love in the normal ways as the obstacles of their past bind them from experiencing usual empathy available to all. in two simple words: WEIRDO LOVE. but in this kind of romances, you find the most sincere sort of love since it transcends your commonplace, humdrum perceptions of love. those people are just like little fishes confined in a tiny plastic bag made of their emotional difficulties, but those little fishes just gotta smash their heads off to make a hole and escape out of the microcosmos of their little plastic bag to seek love and make love happening even at the end, the little fishes might die of drought. but they just have to love! isn't it romantic? (ok, that may be me who thinks in that way. maybe i'm twisted as well.) here's some of the best dialogues from ERIN CRESSIDA WILSON: on suffering: "In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him. " on self-multilation: "Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it? "

• erika b

  
  Secretary is about a woman that just got out of mental hospital. She gets a job as secretary. At first her relationship with her boss goes by the boss and worker relationship but over time it turns in to a romantic relationship that is not typical in a working place. Pros Good… More
  Secretary is about a woman that just got out of mental hospital. She gets a job as secretary. At first her relationship with her boss goes by the boss and worker relationship but over time it turns in to a romantic relationship that is not typical in a working place. Pros Good acting Good plot It really shows what mental illness does to you and what a not normal working relationship looks like, It was funny in a way. I think in is one of better films of the 2000's If you want a film that in not in the norm of films or film that taking a look into mental illness you should give this a try.

• Jennifer X

  
  Yuck, why does Maggie Gyllenhaal talk in such a weird voice the entire time?

• Wildaly M

  
  My "guilty sin" movie. I have watched it many times and cannot get enough of it. Lee Holloway and E. Edward Grey are perfect for each other. To see this kind of romance film out there makes me very happy indeed.

• Alice S

  
  Holy heck. Never has a movie with so little actual sex been so erotic. Maggie Gyllenhaal is perfect in her first starring role. She infuses Lee with a fragile strength - strength that, most people don't realize, needs to exist in a true Dominant/submissive relationship. It… More
  Holy heck. Never has a movie with so little actual sex been so erotic. Maggie Gyllenhaal is perfect in her first starring role. She infuses Lee with a fragile strength - strength that, most people don't realize, needs to exist in a true Dominant/submissive relationship. It takes much power and control on the submissive's part to fully submit, as shown in the climax, which leads to a blissfully romantic denouement. For some reason, I don't find James Spader attractive. I think it's because he looks like Mayor Adam West from "Family Guy."

• Derek D

  
  I didn't know what to expect from this one. I watched it with an open mind, but really couldn't help but be disappointed. Spader and Gyllenhaal are great, but the movie drags on with little going for it. Odd and hard to get into to are probably the best ways to describe this… More
  I didn't know what to expect from this one. I watched it with an open mind, but really couldn't help but be disappointed. Spader and Gyllenhaal are great, but the movie drags on with little going for it. Odd and hard to get into to are probably the best ways to describe this one. Not quite softcore porn, not quite dark comedy.

• Anthony L

  
  Naughty but nice, Spader and Gyllenhaal are brilliant in this sexy comedy drama.

• Stefanie C

  
  this is a very loose adaptation of mary gaitskill's story, but the liberties taken with the plot fit with her style. well acted. relationships built on bdsm can be strangely sweet....the end was conventional hollywood style.

• Drew S

  
  I told my friend I thought this was cute and he called me weird but I am totally right. If you automatically equate sexual deviation to perversion or something that deserves unease/consternation, then obviously you won't enjoy this movie. It's unapologetic in its portrayal… More
  I told my friend I thought this was cute and he called me weird but I am totally right. If you automatically equate sexual deviation to perversion or something that deserves unease/consternation, then obviously you won't enjoy this movie. It's unapologetic in its portrayal of S/M fetishism and I'm pretty sure that's not going to change many minds. What's most fascinating about the sexual backbone of the plot is that, despite how it so clearly influences the way the characters act and the choices they make, it is still reinforcing a love story at heart. Two people in need completing themselves with each other? That's the stuff Hollywood loves - this is just a darkly comic, uniquely sexy treatment of the material.

• David L

  
  It's not easy to find original and provocative stories in present day cinema (especially in north-american cinema). The studios and the producers prefer to be on a safe ground and they spend their money in boring action movies, or in clumsy comedies (does the audience really want… More
  It's not easy to find original and provocative stories in present day cinema (especially in north-american cinema). The studios and the producers prefer to be on a safe ground and they spend their money in boring action movies, or in clumsy comedies (does the audience really want that?? I guess they do). But thanks God there're some independent creators that keep searching for new things. Steven Shainberg seems to be one of those creators: he's adapted to the big screen a short story by Mary Gaitskill which tells the life story of Lee Halloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a twenty-something girl with serious emotional disorders who likes to injure herself. She goes and applies for a job as a secretary at a lawyer's office owned by Edward Grey (James Spader). Mr. Grey is and eccentric, sadistic, and angry son of a bitch, who'll begin humiliating and mistreating Lee since the very first day... Now this would be a nice starting point for a labour-and-sex-abuse movie, just if the character performed by Mrs. Gyllenhall wouldn't enjoy all of those abuses and humiliations. Shainberg has created a whole series of weird characters. Each and every one of the individuals we see in "Secretary" are a little bit touched and quite unhappy. Although we can consider "Secretary" as a comedy (a black humor comedy), thre're plenty of disliking sequences which Shainberg perfectly mixes with funny and crazy situations. And that's not easy to achieve: making a comedy out of people's disorders and life troubles may result in an unbalanced film: now you're laughing, and the second after you're terrified. But that doesn't happen in "Secretary", because even the toughest passages in the movie contain sort of a pathetic and freaky atmosphere that will prevent us from feeling sad about the characters. As for the actors, the highly expressive face of Maggie Gyllenhaal contrasts with unexpressive James Spader. They're the absolute starrings in "Secretary", and they do it just great: Mrs. Gyllenhaal proves that she's a great actress and James Spader finally appears on a decent movie years and years after of his best achievement: Sex, Lies, And Video-tapes. Jeremy Davies makes a good job as Lee's border-line boyfriend, and veteran Lesley Ann Warren perfectly plays Lee's depressive and submissive mother. To sum up. Not a film for everyone but if your interested in something a little different than usual then this a film worth checking out.

• Arash X

  
  "The story of a demanding boss and the woman who loves his demands."

• Red L

  
  Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is getting back to a normal life after being released from a mental hospital. She finds a job as a secretary to Mr. Grey (James Spader). The movie turns out to be a love story -- albeit a somewhat unusual one. It is quite amazing to see Lee develop from an… More
  Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is getting back to a normal life after being released from a mental hospital. She finds a job as a secretary to Mr. Grey (James Spader). The movie turns out to be a love story -- albeit a somewhat unusual one. It is quite amazing to see Lee develop from an insecure girl to a woman who knows what she wants and is willing to fight for it.

• Michael S

  
  Very naughty little gem. Hate that James Spader though!

• Rachel F

  
  This is an excellent movie. It's so utterly twisted, but fantastic. Everyone should see this movie.

• Keysha H

  
  It's dark, and James Spader is on fire. This kind of love isn't usually depicted on the big sccreen. I love it!

• Dean L

  
  This is a love story...a dark and twisted love story by some accounts, but a love story nonetheless. If you are thinking when I say this that it is a "chick flick" or a "skin flick" look elsewhere because it is neither. This is the first movie I have seen that has… More
  This is a love story...a dark and twisted love story by some accounts, but a love story nonetheless. If you are thinking when I say this that it is a "chick flick" or a "skin flick" look elsewhere because it is neither. This is the first movie I have seen that has hit the mainstream that has explored the true meaning behind an S&M relationship...that being one of 100% trust and honesty. Being allowed to let your guard down, open yourself wide, and feel no shame inside the safety of a relationship where someone really understands you and loves you for who you are. To say that this is a romantic comedy would be true, but also unjust because it is so much more than that. A woman who has been misunderstood her whole life meets a man who has also been misunderstood and the only way he has survived is by hiding that side of himself from all save a few...and they have abandoned him...until now. You decide...are they poison for one another or a panacea? I vote the latter. I won't go much further here so as not to be a spoiler, but watch, and squirm, and feel uncomfortable...and then ask yourself, "why does this make me uncomfortable?" If you want a delicious Noir Love Story you have found it in this magnificent film.

• xGary X

  
  What little I knew of this film made me fear it would be an exercise in misogynistic titillation for beer swilling macho louts. How wrong I was. What I discovered was a smart, sexy and insightful analogy for and examination of relationships, and what they represent. What could easily… More
  What little I knew of this film made me fear it would be an exercise in misogynistic titillation for beer swilling macho louts. How wrong I was. What I discovered was a smart, sexy and insightful analogy for and examination of relationships, and what they represent. What could easily have been misinterpreted as exploitation of an emotionally vulnerable young woman really shows how a relationship is about the needs of the individuals involved, and if they conjoin in such a way as to satisfy both, who is to judge whether or not it is "right" or "wrong"? Maggie Gyllenhaal's evolution from self harming neurotic to happy and fulfilled young woman is far more affirming and positive than the usual Meg Ryan/Hugh Grant/Andie McDowell infested Hallmark moment churned out by the Hollywood conveyor belt. And it's actually funny.

• Dean M

  
  Strange psychosexual pathology distinguishes this office romance entertaining two hander about a stern obsessive lawyer employing a bright secretary for much more than your customary understanding of overtime.

• Michael G

  
  If it's twisted and James Spader is in it, I'm there.

Read all 20 featured audience ratings