Receiving a generous amount of advance publicity and availability for a film of its type Secretary is an offbeat cocktail of office romance and fetishism that will appeal to some and repulse others. Based on the short story by Mary Gaitskill the action begins with the release of a Lee Holloway, a young woman in her mid-twenties from a mental facility after a protracted stay.

Arriving home on the day of her sister's wedding Lee finds herself feeling immediately out of place almost relapses into her neurosis of choice, self-mutilation. The reasons for Lee's fragile psyche soon become clear, a turbulent home life, an alcoholic father, and a 'successful' sister living with her husband in a pool house at the bottom of the garden. Determined to establish her independence Lee resolves to grow out of her shell and starts by qualifying as a typist with a view to becoming a secretary. Lee quickly finds work for aloof and exacting lawyer Edward Gray (James Spader) with a history of broken employees behind him. Lee takes to the work well despite her boss' lack of people skills but finds herself increasingly on the sharp end of numerous barbs culminating in Gray spanking her when one typo becomes one typo too many for him to bear. And after that possibly the strangest office romance in film history takes flight. But as always the course of true love does not run smoothly as Edward begins to question whether this relationship has any basis in love at all or merely the placation of forbidden desires.

Both Spader and Gyllenhaal put in fine performances as the fractured duo and the script by Erin Crenida Wilson hums along at a fine pace despite an unnecessary voice over and a third act that sags a little towards the end. The direction is somewhat angular with Spader's character kept an unknown quantity almost until the end and interesting use is made of the office environment, which takes on the dual functions of workplace and S&M palace.

However while the sum of the parts may well function the whole remains something of a mixed bag. Neither wholly funny nor dramatic Secretary makes its home in the quirky and the incidental with an amorphous quality that keeps serious introspection at arms length, which is indeed strange for a character drama with psychological leanings. Don't expect any great shocks in the depiction of sadomasochism either, these characters are not scenesters in the tradition of say Crash (another Spader outing), but are rather trying to explore the limits of affection in a way only they can appreciate. There is little actual cruelty or humiliation going on here, which would dull the action to the point of sentimentality for some viewers expecting harder, grittier fare. But this is a romance after all and as such is rooted in affection as opposed to eroticism.

As a fantasy Secretary retains a purity at its core through the character of Lee who turns the pain in her life from a mental to a physical and in the end into a toy. Such simplicity may rankle at times but it amply reflects the inner state of its protagonist (agonist?), as her self-esteem paradoxically develops through violent submission.

Neither the stuff of serious examination nor thankfully of bawdy farce Secretary is a wispy, left field gem that given the right frame of mind amuses in all the right places, and sometimes slaps in the wrong ones. But not too hard.

Niall Kitson