ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

julia garner

Reviews 

OZARK Season Four – Review by Susan Granger

Susan Granger , , , , , , , ,

The murder and mayhem that characterized the poplar Netflix series Ozark has come to an end – as season four concludes the Bryde family’s compelling crime drama. So it’s a perfect time to binge-watch. After moving from Chicago to a lakefront house in the Ozarks, Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) Bryde, along with their adolescent offspring – Jonah (Skylar Gaertner) and Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz) – pursue lives of corruption and crime.

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Reviews 

INVENTING ANNA – Review by Susan Granger

Susan Granger , , , , , , , , ,

You may recognize Emmy-winner Julia Garner’s face and distinctively nasal voice from Ozark, but in the nine episodes of Inventing Anna she plays enigmatic grifter Anna Sorokin – a.k.a. Anna Delvey. For years, brazen Anna passed herself off as the daughter of a German tycoon, gliding through Manhattan’s opulent hotels, restaurants and night clubs, clad in expensive couture. Posing as an heiress, she cleverly befriended socialites, high-fashion designers and moneyed tech moguls.

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Reviews 

THE ASSISTANT – Review by Brandy McDonnell

Brandy McDonnell 0 Comments , , , ,

Garner’s riveting performance, the use of ambient office noise instead of a traditional score and Green’s decision to keep Jane’s omnipresent boss unseen – although we do overhear a couple of his threatening, profanity-laced phone calls that she stoically endures – all keep the slow-burn drama smoldering.

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Reviews 

THE ASSISTANT – Review by Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna 0 Comments , , ,

Unlike the overtly melodramatic Bombshell, director and writer Kitty Green’s The Assistant instead offers a more everyday slow-burn alternative to a drama inspired by the #MeToo era. Its greatest asset is a subtle yet deeply felt performance by Julia Garner of Ozark and Grandma fame as a witness to the evil that the Harvey Weinstein monsters of the world do to the women who are under their sway. In contrast to the depiction of the Fox News sex-abuse scandal, this scenario could happen in almost any workplace and is far more relatable.

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Interviews 

Kitty Green on THE ASSISTANT, Harvey Weinstein and Sexual Harassment – Jessica Zack interviews

Jessica Zack 0 Comments , , , , , ,

Kitty Green was on the Stanford campus in fall 2017, conducting interviews for a documentary about sexual misconduct on college campuses, when news of sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein broke. The Assistant, Green’s feature film about a day in the life of a producer’s assistant, the type of person New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, who broke the Weinstein story, characterize as being part of the “complicity machine” that enabled Weinstein’s monstrous behavior for so many years.

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Reviews 

THE ASSISTANT – Review by Loren King

Loren King 0 Comments , , ,

To watch this film while Harvey Weinstein is on trial for rape is a gut punch. Australian writer-director Kitty Green’s minimalist, keenly observed study of a young woman, Jane (Julia Garner) who works for a movie mogul in downtown New York is clearly based on Weinstein. But even more illuminating is its depiction of an exploitative, nearly cult-like, soul-crushing work culture that enables an abusive predator.

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Reviews 

THE ASSISTANT – Review by Sheila Roberts

Sheila Roberts 0 Comments , , , ,

A polite command, “Show her in,” takes on a chilling connotation in award-winning Australian filmmaker Kitty Green’s riveting dramatic feature debut, The Assistant. Green takes a savage look at a typical day in the life of an aspiring, competent and well-educated junior assistant who has just landed a promising position working for a powerful entertainment industry executive. The story is inspired in part by the #MeToo investigation into workplace sexual abuse allegations by movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and others that have been chronicled in the media over the past three years, and most recently in Ronan Farrow’s bestselling novel, Catch and Kill, and podcasts.

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Movie of the Week Reviews 

MOVIE OF THE WEEK January 31, 2020: THE ASSISTANT

Jennifer Merin 0 Comments , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Not all #MeToo moments are shocking or dramatic; one of the most terrible things about the culture that’s fostered so much abuse, fear, and doubt is its very insidiousness. All of that is made quite clear in The Assistant, writer/director Kitty Green’s eye-opening drama about a day in the life of an entry-level Hollywood hopeful.

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