Secretary 2002

“This wicked little black comedy, adapted from a short story by Mary Gaitskill, chronicles the perverse attraction between a young typist (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her uptight boss (James Spader), a sadomasochistic tango that strikes unexpected chords in each character. The young woman is a self-mutilator, and when the attorney spanks her for a minor mistake, she knows she’s found the right job. The film’s romantic conceit turns on the decidedly un-PC notion of female submissiveness, but director Steven Shainberg twists the story into a sly and stylized study of two lonely souls who come to realize they’re made for each other.” — Ted Shen, Chicago Reader 

“Secretary is a genial romance that maintains a surprisingly buoyant tone throughout, notwithstanding some of the writers’ sporadic dips into pop Freudianis… The relationship that matters, that gives the film its spark, its cheeky humor and its reason for being, is the one Lee develops with her new boss, Mr Grey (Spader), an obsessive-compulsive lawyer with a fanatical loathing of typing errors and a predilection for sexual dominance. It’s a match made in dysfunctional heaven. Spader is very fine as a spookier, more twitchy version of the shuttered character he played in Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape… But it’s Gyllenhaal who makes Secretary work, saving it from titillation and sordidness as she turns a dormouse into a revelation.” — Manohla Dargis, LA Times