For thousands of times, I have been trying to define what romantic comedy is really all about. It's boy meets girl (or girl meets boy), try to hate each other at first, say silly words at each other and then at some point in the film, they will realise that they actually like each other and that they share a bit of understanding. So by the end of the film, romantic comedy trademarks, there should be a rushing scene or somebody running catching another i.e. in a train, in a subway, or in an airplane - and the kissing part ensues... awww, group hug. Notwithstanding, it's all pretty predictable.

However, this film Secretary directed by Steven Shainberg breaks the rules. Yes, at its core it's a romantic comedy, but its cleverly veiled by another genre that our mothers and fathers would have been yelling to us not to watch 10 years ago: porn movie slash sodomasochism. Heck yeah, it's not even for minor audiences.

It starts as an angsty nobody-understands-me drama, except for the brow-raising and kinky prologue with Maggie Gyllenhaal in handcuffs in the office, with the character of Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who just got out of a mental institution. She was a misunderstood teenager who had the habit of self-mutilation. Because of her neurotic family, who care less about her especially her father whose attitude seemed to prod into the realm of indifference, when she feels the emotional pain inside her, she usually grabs hold of sharp objects and mutilate herself with it. It's her only outlet for her pain to build up in her physical world, for the amount of pain inside her was already unbearable for her. Her mother had even started to lock the knives away from her. But when she finally wanted to break free from her own tormenting world, she learns to become a typist (and becomes good at it), and applied for a secretary for an uber-demanding lawyer named Mr Gray (James Spader) whose all "do this and do that". One of the funniest (and weirdest) scenes in the film was when Lee was interviewed for the post, Mr Grey told her blatantly, "You are going to be bored with this job", she replies straightly "I wanna be bored". He again snorted in disbelief, "But all these typing, it's a dull job,", Lee replied without fuss, "I love dull jobs".

She started becoming a very submissive secretary and all his boss's demands, she cooperated without any shifts of brows. We might think that she has some screws loose in her head, but we soon realise that her boss too had some screws loose in his own head as well. This time she lets go of her childish habits, and suddenly turns into a woman - a horny one in fact. She always displeases Mr Grey by doing some deliberate errors in her typing job so more spanking ensues, kinky sexual innuendos, masochism, and masturbation happens, I tell you it's not a film for kids.

That is why this film is very weird, and very originally made at that. Secretary is a witty movie; it plays on its characters and situations, and the film lets these two elements breathe on their own. Maggie Gyllenhaal does an incredibly unbelievable performance as Lee Holloway; at first she astounds us with the amount of angst she was ale to show, and then finally stuns us with gaping mouths with "what-the---??" moments. Secretary is well cast; James Spader creates a very masochistic boss character of Mr Grey, yet not knowing his very potential of masochism. His dominant figure was both strong, and vulnerable at some times. Now you gotta be some actor to pull that off.

Speaking sincerely now, psychologically speaking, Secretary is a film for open-minded people. If you're totally against it, tough. It's a close observations on human behaviour and uses S/M as a dynanism towards these two characters. One might never get the whole idea why the secretary wanted to be punished by spanking, and why the boss wanted the secretary to bend over the desk, and could be oversimplified just to sex. There is more to what meets the eye between these two characters, because between such deliberate (and sordid) acts, they find common understanding in each other, about their wants and needs. He's a boss with an obsessive-compulsive behaviour and loves to torment secretaries without even thinking about it, but she's a girl who wanted to be dominated with, to be spanked in the butt, to be roughly treated. S/M might not have worked for other people or might find it disgusting, but hell it worked for these two characters so why don't we let them?

It's a very funny film as well, a dark comedy about office affairs. It's just so fresh, so original, that never in a film before had this type of combo had been played so playfully. It's far from a perfect film, in fact, but even though I have tried hard and hard enough to define this film, it's a romantic comedy at the end of the day - but a good one.


Rating: B+