Product Description

James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal When Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal - Donnie Darko, Adaptation) gets a job as a secretary in a small firm she does her best to please. But her new boss (James Spader - Stargate, Crash) finds fault with her typing and administers a rather unconventional kind of punishment. Soon Lee realises that she is not only becoming the perfect secretary, but also the woman she always wanted to be. Daring, sexy and provocative, this award-winning film is a must for anyone who's ever had a hard day at work...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4810 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-07
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Synopsis
The masochist says to the sadist, Hurt me. The sadist replies, No. Everybody's happy. This strange balance plays heavily into the Steven Shainberg-directed SECRETARY, based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill. Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a troubled young woman with a secret, destructive addiction fuelled by her mother's overprotectiveness and her father's alcoholism. Sheltered and wholly dependent on other people, Lee's only form of self-expression is in this private, painful habit. That is, until she meets her new boss, the lawyer E. Edward Gray (James Spader), who hires her as his secretary. It is exciting for Lee to hold down a job, even if she is a basket case in the office. Mr. Gray watches Lee, studies her, and slowly begins to correct both her typing errors and her personality flaws. At first Mr. Gray's dominance appears scary and overbearing, a true threat to Lee's naive, fragile psyche. But as the film carefully develops these unique characters, revealing their odd strengths and weaknesses, it becomes delightfully clear that Lee and Mr. Gray can genuinely help each other. SECRETARY is a bright, atmospheric movie that shines a light on the fun in this dysfunctional relationship, while using brilliant performances by Gyllenhaal and Spader to illustrate the benefits of sadomasochistic love.

Customer Reviews

A total failure
As you might guess from the cover this film is an over-hyped farce. It pretends to be some sort of daring look at an unconventional relationship, but by the last scene its clear that the couple have settled down to a quiet life in suburbia. Secretary is basically a weak love story beefed up with a hint of s and m.

You might have thought that the days when a sexy movie poster would sell a film were gone; alas slick marketing can still make an utterly underwhelming film into fairly big box office. I cannot remember being so disappointed by any other film I have seen, it is sterile rubbish dressed up as an "alternative" movie. Anyone who thinks there is anything daring or shocking here needs to get out more.

Fantastic Film.
This is one of my favourite films of all time. Its an unusual Love story, of 2 people who desperately need each other to eventualy find happiness. It^s amusing, warm and has the perfect ending.! James Spader is superb as usual. Above all it^s not the everday done a million times love story, it^s something realy different and entertaining.

Not really my cup of tea but.....
I went into this film not really knowing anything about it. It centres around Lee Holloway who is a recovering self harmer and lawyer E. Edward Grey who she goes to work for.

Grey discovers that Holloway is still self harming and sternly instructs her not to anymore. Gradually their relationship escalates into Grey's sexual dominance of Holloway until he gets cold feet.

Secretary is a strange film. I never found it particularly erotic and the initial self harming scenes are slightly disturbing. However, the relationship that evolves between the two leads is very well played out and both deserve credit for their performances.

In many ways this is a love film. Although not a typical love film, where two characters fall in love through their unconventional sex life.

Not really my cup of tea but I can see why people are big fans of the film.

5/10