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: #1587 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

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

Simply Brilliant
If you want to believe that human sexuality and human relationships should be all vanilla, sugar and spice, then this film is probably not for you.

But if you want to enjoy an honest, well-made, perfectly performed film that is prepared to look at the ways that people may find fulfilment in the most unlikely practices, and if your understanding of people does not begin and end with the normal rules about sexual harassment at work, then you will like it.