THE ASSISTANT

n the tone-setting opening of Kitty Green’s , the protagonist, Jane (Julia Garner), an entry-level assistant at a film production company, arrives at her colour-drained Tribeca office in a darkness too deep to be pre-dawn. Initiating a symphony of white noise, she flicks on a bank of buzzing fluorescent lights, brews a pot of coffee, and collects spreadsheets of box-office grosses from a lurching printer. Delivering the documents to the office of her boss, she discovers a piece of jewellery on the floor, then pulls on a pair of rubber gloves, sprays cleaning fluid on the couch, and begins to scrub it down as Green cuts to a close-up of her face, which evinces nothing other than a tunnel-vision focus on completing the task