The film focuses on one workday in the life of Garner’s character, whose name is listed in the credits as Jane but who is unnamed in the film, as she manages the life of the also nameless Weinstein-esque executive in what is obviously a movie company. The film examines her life and their relationship through the mundane details of her job. Green said in a press conference at the festival that she spoke to more than 100 people in the film industry to research the film.The assistant, who is the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, is entrusted with all kinds of intimate jobs, such as preparing the boss’s smoothie, dealing with his hysterical wife when her credit cards are declined, and entertaining his children while they are waiting to see him.But more disturbing than that, she is tasked with managing the parade of young women who are brought in to see him all day, from starlets – who show up at the office wearing sexy outfits and clutching headshots – to a waitress from Idaho who is hired as an “assistant” but who is installed in a fancy hotel and is not taught anything about what the real work of an assistant entails.It’s Garner’s character who returns a single earring to a young woman who clearly left the boss’s office in a hurry the night before, and who tells executives who want to see him for work-related matters that he is “on a personal” with one of the starlets and can’t be interrupted.Actress Jessica Mann testified in Weinstein’s trial that he needed to inject himself with an erectile dysfunction drug before some of the sexual assaults, and the assistant in the film unpacks boxes of just such a drug, Alprostadil. She also disposes of used syringes she fishes out of the trash.Articles published in 2017 in The New York Times and The New Yorker kicked off the #MeToo movement in which sexual predators were outed. While many men were named in these articles, there were more allegations – and by several high-profile actresses – against Weinstein, the film producer and founder of the entertainment company Miramax, than against anyone else.While the assistant in the film is not preyed on sexually, the threat is always in the air, and she and the others in the office know about the boss’s sexual encounters and are disgusted with their part in facilitating them.The boss himself is never shown.“We really need to center women in these narratives. The focus doesn’t need to be on the bad men anymore. Let’s talk about women and the issues we’re facing,” said Green in the festival press conference.
New film tells Weinstein’s story - from the point of view of his assistant
The film focuses on one workday in the life of Garner’s character, whose name is listed in the credits as Jane but who is unnamed in the film.
