Bend over, Ms Higgins!

We have not had, outside the world of porn videos, a film quite like this; a mainstream Hollywood film about, er, the spanking and humiliation of secretaries.

Fri, 16 May, 2003 - 16:21

Secretary

Director: Steven Shainberg

Cast: Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Lesley Ann Warren, Jeremy Davies

Cert: 18.

We have not had, outside the world of porn videos, a film quite like this; a mainstream Hollywood film about, er, the spanking and humiliation of secretaries. However much the makers may claim that it is more of a serious consideration of modern-day office life and how people come to terms with it, it is still a film about, er, the spanking and humiliation of secretaries.

It will, need one add, be an enormous success, and not just with troubled gentlemen in trench-coats, dark glasses and wide-brimmed hats and with a habit of breathing heavily.

The eye-catching Gyllenhaal plays a troubled young lady with difficult mood-swings who plucks up the courage to get herself a job as a secretary in the law firm of Spader; who, er, proceeds to punish her for such things as spelling mistakes and too much sugar in the coffee by, er, spanking her.

It is, the makers would claim, a serious examination of relationships and it has to be said that the playing of Gyllenhaal and Spader is wonderful in what is a curious and interesting film.

But a whack is still a whack.

Star Rating: 3/5