Secretary

Released: 2002
Drama, romance (certainly not conventional romance either)
Starring: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director: Steven Shainberg
Running Time: 104 minutes



The breakdown:
A young woman just released from a mental institution finds a job as a secretary for a demanding lawyer.  This is a raw character study of sadomasochism and is not for children.  There is full female nudity, lots of sexual situations, behavioral issues, and some swearing.  Watch it after your kids go to bed.

Wow, where do I start?!  I'll just have to dive right in because this movie is a goldmine! SPOILER ALERT....I'm going to have to talk about the entire movie to make an analysis.  Don't read any longer if you want to see this movie and not know the ending.  If this is where you stop......See this movie!  It's great!

I had heard a lot about this movie for many years.  I thought it was just going to be some movie verging on porno with lots of sadomasochism.  I was pleasantly surprised overall.  I didn't know Maggie Gyllenhaal was in it.  I know when it came out in theaters I didn't know who she was at all.  I first was attracted to watching this since James Spader's in it and I think he can be pretty sexy, so given the content I wanted to see what it was all about.
Let's start at the beginning.  The plot.
Gyllenhaal plays Lee, a young women who likes to cut herself for relief/release/pleasure?  I'm not a psychologist and I can't pretend to understand why people cut themselves to feel better, but that's what she likes to do.  That's what she goes into the mental institution for anyways.
When she gets out, she lives with her parents and is a bit lost.  She goes to a jr. college and takes typing.  She's still struggling to quit cutting herself, but she can't help herself, and soon gets to doing it pretty regularly.  She needs a job and finds out a lawyer, Mr. Grey, played by Spader, is looking for a secretary.  She did very well in college at typing, so she goes for an interview and gets the job.
At first, Spader is a cruel and demanding boss to her.  Through the course of the movie he discovers she cuts herself and he responds to that, he realizes they are alike in a way.  He enjoys being the dominant one in a S&M situation and the 2 begin a tightrope as to what their relationship really is.  Had they not been attracted to each other, Gyllenhaal would immediately quit and sue him for sexual harassment. 
This movie is so complicated with the relationship between these two characters that it's hard for me to describe it.
She doesn't accept herself, because no one else does, i.e. cutting yourself is bad and she went to a mental institution for it (yes it is bad and unhealthy, I'm not condoning that behavior.)
He knows he likes making women be submissive to him and degrade them, but he feels that he's sick for liking that and getting pleasure from it.  He's wound very tight, he's putting on a great show for most people that he's under control and got it all together, but she sees through that.  He's very anal retentive, OCD, and that certainly plays into his love of S&M.
He sees her as a potential great submissive partner due to the fact that she likes cutting herself and is pretty unsure of herself.
He's very cold with her most of the movie keeping it at a professional level, until he starts spanking her over his desk, etc. etc.  The relationship changes, but they don't voice it out loud.
She's confused at first, but he commands her to not cut herself anymore and she doesn't.  She, in fact, throws away all of her normal tools to do so.  She replaces that behavior with letting him dominate her in the office, but they don't have sex.  Though she really wants that, he's still trying to ignore his S&M tendencies, even though, he's probably developing feelings for her.
She's not able to read him and she's been dating this dork from high school that she knew and has sex with him.  She's terribly bored during sex with him and their general relationship.  She wants to be with her boss, but with all the activities that they do together at work, he doesn't open up to her.  In fact, he's still not really anything more than civil to her, SOMETIMES, when she doesn't misbehave in the office by making typing errors = punishment.
Things come to a head when Gyllenhaal's suddenly fired by Spader.  He's feeling guilty about what they do and the only way to stop it, he thinks, is to fire her.  She realizes he's done this same pattern with other secretaries before her, and she's just the latest causality.  Her boyfriend, the nerd from her high school days proposes marriage to her.  She says yes because she doesn't really know what else to do.  She misses Spader and doesn't tell anyone she got fired.  She goes to his office and sits in a car watching as he hires another secretary.  At her fiancees house, her soon to be mother-in-law dresses her in the family heirloom wedding gown saying she has to go get her husband to show him how she looks in the dress.  While staring at herself in the mirror, she tears off the veil and runs out of the house, leaving her engagement ring on the table.  She runs, literally, to Spader's office and confesses she loves him, still in her wedding dress.  He still won't be anything but cold with her.  He's really overwhelmed at her confession and says they can't play this game all the time.  She says, why not?  She says she wants to be with him and that he understands her and she him.  He tells her to sit at his desk with her feet on the ground and palms on the table and not to move until he gets back.  Spader tests her by calling her fiancee to his office.  She tells her fiancee she doesn't want him and he doesn't understand what she's doing.  He forcibly rolls her chair away from the desk and she hits him to get back to the desk.  He does leave, but calls her family and friends to talk some sense into her.  Over the course of the next 3 days she stays right where Spader told her to and he checks on her through the window behind her.  The media gets involved and thinks she's making some sort of statement with a hunger strike.  Her family and friends are constantly talking with her at the office and won't leave.  Spader comes back and by then she's falling asleep and very weak.  He gently carries her, still in the wedding dress, upstairs to where he keeps a patch of Earth for gardening (he loves orchids and has them all over his office).  He lovingly takes her out of her dress, washes her up, and for the first time shows how much he feels for her.  It's a real satisfying scene to watch after all the rough behavior from him towards her.
He begins answering her questions about himself and they finally drop all their walls down.  They get married quickly.  They live together happily ever after, though she's now not his secretary, but his wife.  They completely understand each other and accept each other for what they are.  They continue the S&M submissive/dominant relationship, and love each other deeply as well.  At the very end of the movie, they wake up after a short honeymoon (the weekend, since Spader needs to go back to work) and make the bed.  He tells her just how to make it and she's fine with that.  She sits out in the morning light on the porch and waves goodbye to him as he leaves for the office.  The camera follows his car to the end of the street and then focuses back on her.  She's watching him drive off, but then, boldly switches her gaze directly to you the viewer.  With just her face she lets you know, this is me, this is my new life, and I'm perfectly happy with myself and my relationship.  It's a beautiful character arc, even though the way she got there to some may be disturbing or uncomfortable to watch.  Their relationship definitely is inappropriate at first, but certainly not illegal.

My take:
I'm very open minded, that's how I've been raised.  Basically, live and let live.  S&M is not for everyone, but as long as both parties agree to it, and are ok with it, it's fine between them.  Who am I to say it's wrong what 2 consenting adults do behind closed doors?
Maggie Gyllenhaal took a role that could've turned out really very dangerous for some actresses, given how raw the storyline is.  It could've turned out ruining someone's career because they couldn't pull it off and then end up looking like some cheap prostitute.  Or made a very interesting movie into something sick and twisted and hard to watch.  This movie is nothing like a porno, let me make that clear first.  It's like a drama with a mostly gritty romance until the end when it softens.
What works about this story is that you have a couple of really amazing actors who work well together.
Spader is amazing as a hard ass demanding demeaning boss who is completely cold and self loathing.
Gyllenhaal is terrific as an unsure, self-conscious woman learning about herself, relationships, and what she really wants.
I love the confident bold look she gives the camera at the end, breaking the fourth wall incredibly effectively, and telling us she's finally happy, comfortable, and she accepts herself and her lifestyle.  By the end of the movie, you forget she was in a mental institution at all and believe the character has made a huge journey throughout the film to be well-adjusted at the end.
Some of the scenes were very sexy, very effective at creating sexual tension and chemistry between the 2 characters is intense.  The caring, loving scenes at the end are very well done showing how much Spader's character feels for Gyllenhaal and can finally let it show and accept himself and his lifestyle as well.
Great character study movie.  Great sexy movie.  Great acting, and directing as well.
I give it 4 1/2 ticket stubs out of 5 for the intense sexual tension growing between the couple over the entire course of the movie and the loving romantic scenes at the end that really show a compatible couple blossoming together.  It's really refreshing at the end to see a happy ending for a love story, though, this one doesn't start where most do.  A strong, unique, interesting well done movie.