Directed by: Steven Shainberg
Starring: Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies, Lesley Ann Warren, Stephen McHattie
It caught my eye that the dominant, sadist attorney in Secretary is named E. Edward Grey, while the dominant sadist in the Fifty Shades of Grey series is also named Grey. Coincidence or did this film influence the Fifty Shades series? I don't know, but both approach the subject of a sadomasochistic relationship as a kinky love story. The characters in Secretary are more complex and involving, which carries the film about three-quarters of the way through until it tries to shoehorn in a happy ending which doesn't work. The final scenes of bliss feel tacked on, as if there were a darker ending which test audiences or executives didn't care for.
Instead of discussing the ending, I will discuss the setup. Lee Holloway (Gyllenhaal) is a troubled young woman recently released from a mental institution. She cuts herself with needles and other objects as a way of coping with her myriad insecurities and pain. After a course or two at business school, where she learns to be a decent typist, she applies as a secretary for fastidious, compulsive attorney Mr. Grey (Spader), who not unreasonably doesn't like spelling errors on correspondence to clients. Mr. Grey, however, does not merely tell Lee to shape up, he corrects her with a series of spankings and other S & M related punishments which Lee finds she likes. Mr. Grey also tells Lee what to eat, how much to eat, and to walk home instead of getting rides from her overprotective mother (Warren).
Since Lee enjoys the S & M, naturally she will make mistakes on purpose so she can be corrected, but Mr. Grey is too wily to fall for that. She screws up and is upset when Mr. Grey doesn't punish her, so she thinks of new ways to get his attention, including sending him an earthworm in the mail.
Lee soon falls for Mr. Grey, or at least thinks she does, while Mr. Grey remains closed-off and isolated from her and everyone else he comes into contact with. His office is situated in what looks like an abandoned church, with the decor looking like a fashionable S & M parlor complete with phallic symbols in the stained glass and a leather cushion door to Mr. Grey's office.
Things go along well enough for Mr. Grey and Lee, until they suddenly don't. Mr. Grey finds he may care for Lee more than other secretaries who served him before, but he can't allow himself to feel that way and coldly disposes of Lee. She has a straight-arrow, awkward boyfriend (Davies) who doesn't even come close to satisfying her sexually since he only does straight sex. When she tries to entice him to spank her, he doesn't respond, and she is left with feelings of longing for the emotionally detached Mr. Grey.
Spader and Gyllenhaal play nicely off each other in their emotional cat and mouse game. Spader excels at playing stuffy yuppies with secrets in his heart, while Gyllenhaal is naive, somewhat innocent, but knows what makes her happy, which is something that has eluded her for the first twenty-plus years of her life. She is very good here. But, then the movie steps wrong after Mr. Grey and Lee separate. The movie's ending is unworthy of the complexities which came before it. Lee gets what she wants, which is for Mr. Grey to open up, but not every love story's ending should be a happy one. The movie is about the denial of feelings and the inability of Lee to get what she truly wants out of Mr. Grey. Then, Mr. Grey suddenly turns into a pushover because the screenplay says so, and that will not do.
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