'The Assessment' Review: Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander Duel in Cold Dystopian Drama

09/08/2024 07:30 PM

Another piece of indie sci-fi set in a dystopian future in which humans have come close to destroying the planet (see also: "The End," also making the festival circuit these days), "The Assessment" is a film for both Deep State conspiracy theorists and those who think Deep State conspiracy theorists are nuts. This film, the first feature by French music video director Fleur Fortuné, had its world premiere on Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

It posits a future in which the government has killed all the pets and requires an elaborate approval process before couples can have children. It's an intimate drama with an invisible Big Brother both outside and inside the walls.

Imaginative in a minimal way, "The Assessment" is a severe work of cinema, unforgiving to its central characters as it comes up with an array of ways to torment them. There are things to admire in the visual design and in the way a small group of accomplished actors submit to this quiet horror show, but cold, begrudging admiration is about all the admittedly stylish film is designed to elicit.

Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) is a genius botanical scientist growing all sorts of crops, despite the inhospitable conditions in the ravaged environment outside their invisible dome of protection; Aaryan (Himesh Patel) designs and creates virtual pets that take solid form, a necessity since the state did away with all real-life pets in the name of disease prevention. They live in a stark dream house and clearly have lots of money, which ought to make them ideal candidates to pass "the assessment," in which an assessor lives with them for a week and evaluates their suitability as parents. In fact, the assessor tells them they're in the top 0.1% — which isn't quite as encouraging as it sounds, since they have no idea how many people make the cut. 

The problem is that the assessment is seven days of mental and emotional torture designed, it seems, to expose every vulnerability, secret and shortcoming of the couple — and if that results in destroying their lives in the process, so be it.

It starts small, with increasingly invasive questions from assessor Virginia (Alicia Vikander), a quiet but stern would-be automaton who, by the end of the first day, is standing outside their bedroom door watching them have sex.

"I need to assess all aspects of your relationships," she says. "It's fine. Just pretend I'm not here."

Stubbornly resistant to answering any personal questions of her own, Virginia seemingly has less personality than Mia and Aaryan's A.I. house, which at least feigns humanity when it talks to them. 

In the morning, though, Virginia acts like a child — not just a normal child, but an unruly demon from Hell child who refuses to eat, spills some things and breaks others, flings food at her parents and essentially destroys the kitchen.

Much more destruction will follow, with the assessment including the complicated all-night assembly of a fort, an impromptu dinner party with a guest list designed for maximum possible embarrassment and disruption, plus a health emergency that forces Mia to run to her sister's aid in the hospital (despite the fact that leaving the premises is a big no-no for the assessor). By the time Virginia is trapped in a conflagration that she herself caused, it's hard to feel even the slightest bit sorry for her — though it's also hard to feel much for the movie, which doesn't just strain the bounds of credibility but obliterates them.  

That's deliberate, of course: As a film, "The Assessor" is as rigorous and as cruel as the events it depicts. The design of Mia and Aaryan's house, and of the world is general, is spectacularly minimal and dramatic – but by the time a late twist gives Mia a revelation and Virginia a backstory and maybe even a bit  of heart, it seems way too late to find a beating heart in this cold, cold world.

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