Film Review/Interpretation: Secretary (2002)

Warning: Spoilers Ahoy.


My first impression of this film from the DVD cover was that it looked incredibly sleezy. Not too surprisingly, it was my boyfriend who picked it out. I mean, look at it:

So imagine my (and his) surprise when it instantly became one of my favourite films.

The story begins thus: Our female protagonist, Lee Holloway has some long standing and deep set issues with self harm. At the beginning of the film, she has just been released from a short stay in an 'institution' after these issues were discovered. Lee has a somewhat overbearing family life; an overly protective mother, who is perhaps trying to compensate for her alcoholic father. Lee is treated with no trust; all sharp objects are locked away, and later in the film her mother escorts her to and from work, watching the office from her car all day (presumably to guard against the possibility that her daughter might suddenly tear off all of her clothes and run out into the streets, slashing her wrists while barking). It's a cramped environment; Lee's sister and husband live together with them, and Lee's bedroom looks distinctly pink and child-like, suggesting to me the lack of space she has been given to mature. The film portrays self harm in a very sincere way. As anyone who has met with this issue will know, cutting is not the insincere, in-your-face gothic melodrama/cry for attention it is often portrayed as, with black eye liner and My Chemical Romance playing in the background. Lee is a shy, ordinary looking girl who keeps her problems to herself, and this was both refreshing and realistic.

Perhaps to escape this suburban hell, perhaps simply to feel like she is doing something with her life, Lee gains a qualification in typing, and begins looking for office work. She also begins dating a friend from high school, Peter, with whom she appears to share some level of understanding. The vacancy eventually to catch her eye is that of a legal secretary. Enter Mr. Grey. The interview is not exactly grilling;"Are you pregnant?" "No." "Do you plan on getting pregnant?" "No." He impresses upon her that this is a simple job typing and making coffee, and she is likely to be bored. This doesn't faze her, she seems to be looking for exactly that. This probably links back to her reluctance to leave the institution, where "life was simple".

She begins her job, where the requests of her new boss become increasingly specific and demanding. He is shown as slightly obsessive over the details, and we begin to understand perhaps why his previous secretary was seen leaving looking frazzled and teary eyed as Lee came in for interview."Sniffling" is one of her major imperfections Mr. Grey is not happy with, but the biggest problems are her recurrent typos, which he is forever circling with his red marker.If we pay attention to the finer details, however, we can see a different side of him, for example, the nurture he shows in caring for his exotic flowers in his office, and releasing mice rather than killing them, despite the fact that they continue coming back. She willingly obeys all of his commands. When he notices her problem with cutting, he kindly but firmly commands her to stop, and surprisingly to us and herself, she finds that she can. I do not see this as unrealistically easy for her, because to me it appears that she has so far lacked any structure or guidance in her life. Mr. Grey, in his dominant but well meaning role, finally fulfills that gap. One day, however, she finally goes too far. That's right, she makes a typo followed by a sniffle. This is where we get to the good stuff, because in retaliation, he does what any normal boss would do; he bends her over his desk and spanks her. That's right, until her bum is all red and bruised. I've had worse. 

This soon becomes a regular thing, along with other fun 'activities'. One day, when Lee is distressed about her Father being hospitalised, she breaches the employee/boss power play relationship and goes round to his house, and is turned away. Perhaps this was a wake up call for Mr. Grey, who soon stops his dominant behaviour and behaves like a regular boss. This is incredibly frustrating for Lee. She makes more and more typos, flirts, and sends him a sexy picture of herself. She has sex with her boyfriend, Peter, which she finds disappointingly unsatisfying. One day, she decides enough is enough, and amusingly, sends him a letter with a worm in it. Perhaps the funniest moment of the film for me was when he took out his red marker and circled the worm. She is finally called into his office, and this time instructed to pull down her tights and expose herself to him. Rather than have sex with her, he just makes himself come by masturbating. He hen swiftly sends her out. It is then that all of his self hate is shown to us, though we have glimpsed at it before. Up until now, every time we suspect he may be getting sexually aroused he immediately begins doing sit-ups or chin-ups. He now seems very distressed, typing up an apologetic letter for his 'disgusting' behaviour to Lee before shredding it. No explanation for how his previous marriage ended is given, but we can suspect that his sexual behaviour may have had something to do with it, given the way he now oppresses himself.

Finally, he fires Lee. She is distraught but tries to pick herself up. She begins to look for a new dominant/submissive relationship by replying to personal ads in the newspaper (much like when she applied for the job with Mr. Grey), but finds mainly desperate characters out for quick (and not particularly classy) sexual gratification - notably, one beardy guy who kept trying to get her to piss on his patio. I think this scene was very necessary, it distinguished Lee's feelings and her relationship with Mr. Grey from a mere fetish. She goes back to spending most of her time at home, since her father needs help recovering from his alcoholism. Peter proposes to her, and she accepts because she "didn't know what else to do". This is lining up to see Lee trapped into her mediocre, unsatisfying life forever, which seems to dawn on her the moment she sees herself in a wedding dress. Still wearing the dress, she takes off her engagement ring, runs to Mr. Grey's office and confesses her love (oh, the romance of it all).

But it doesn't stop there! That would be far too easy. Mr. Grey is unwilling to accept that she really feels this way about him, likely because he feels so unfavourably about himself. He instructs her to sit at the desk, keep her hands and feet where they are, and not move until he gets back. He then leaves. For three days. As if this wasn't difficult enough for her, he calls Peter to tell him where his fiance is. When he tries to forcibly pull her away from the desk, she kicks him in the balls and bolts back to the table, slamming down her hands, before angrily dumping Peter and shouting at him to get out. Mr. Grey watches, impressed. She gets many visitors trying to convince her out of her position, but a few of support, most importantly, her father, who tells her;"You are the child of God's holy gift of life. You come from me, but you are not me. Your soul and your body are your own, and yours to do with as you wish." Along with being quite a beautiful line (I assumed he was quoting from some piece of profound literature, but it turned out it was written originally for the film), she looks genuinely happy and relieved to hear it. After three days of sitting in her own piss, not eating and attracting attention from the local media, he finally comes to her.

He carries her upstairs of his office building where he (for some reason, I strongly suspect artistic licence) has a kind of indoor garden and a metal bath. He bathes her and they finally have sex. They get married with her in a black wedding dress and fuck against a tree. She moves into his house and they live happily ever after. A soppy ending? Maybe. But just this once, for a love movie, the soppy ending absolutely did not feel like a cliche. In fact, had things gone terribly wrong and he had been exposed as a woman beating scoundrel, THEN it would have been cliched. This film showed that love can be controversial while not being ugly. There is a tendency to assume that something must be mentally wrong with you if you deviate from what is considered normal, hence Mr. Grey's self-hate and reluctance to enter into a new relationship. This film's ending message was that you may be considered some kind of sick deviant by most of society, but you can still find happiness. I thought it was great.

I'll go further, this is the only contemporary love film which succeeds at being original I can think of, and probably the only one I'll ever take the time to review. That said, I'm sure that over half of the people who have watched this film will argue with me that it's not actually a love story. This film has high potential for misinterpretation. I'm sure there are plenty of people who can't think beyond their own comfortable lives enough to see this film as anything more an outrageous piece of filth which should be banned. I'm sure plenty see it as degrading to women. Don't get me wrong, I think the feminist cause has its place, absolutely, but this film is a very realistic depiction of women who do exist- and Lee is in many ways a strong character, she knew what she wanted, and she went out and got it, she is just complex- like all real people are, to some level.