In October 2017, when the New York Times first published allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Australian director Kitty Green was on campus at Stanford University interviewing students for a film about sexual assault. “I had friends at the Weinstein Company so I immediately started texting them.” Within months she was shooting The Assistant, a drama about working for a movie mogul. It followed a day in the life of Jane, played by Julia Garner, whose boss is a sexual predator with a volcanic temper. He was never seen, only ever referred to as “him”, but was without a doubt modelled on Weinstein.
The Assistant became the definitive film of the #MeToo era: a horribly realistic portrait and a forensic examination of how a culture of complicity in some companies enabled men to abuse for years. Its release in early 2020 was a bit muffled. Because of Covid? Green nods. “Also, I think it was so raw. We shot it and released it quite quickly, so people were still almost afraid to speak about it.” Lately, she’s noticed its impact. On a recent trip to Japan, women told her it might have been set in an office there. In New York, where she lives, the city government uses The Assistant in its compulsory sexual harassment training.
