Secretaries & Secretary

Reegs: Welcome to Bad Dads Film Review — the podcast that is to film criticism as a gimp mask is to a job interview. This week we're holding all calls and working late with our Top Five Secretaries. And for our younger listeners, a secretary was a human being whose job was to translate the incompetence of their superiors into something vaguely resembling a workday. That role has since been replaced by Outlook and the optimistic fiction that grown adults can manage their own calendars.

The word secretary survives mainly in politics and medicine — two fields that both involve a lot of being bent over a desk while someone tells you it's for your own good.

Our main feature is Secretary — Steven Shainberg's gloriously strange 2002 film, in which a fragile young woman discovers that punishing and hurting herself is considerably more fun when line managers are involved. It's basically Dirty Dancing, if Baby had specifically asked to stay in the corner and Johnny had the paperwork to make it official.

The standard warning applies. We spoil things because we're inconsiderate bastards and our language is filthy enough to require a formal written apology. So if that's not for you, the door's right there. But for everyone else, let's meet four men who've spent their entire lives in desperate need of a firmer hand and somehow never received one.

Starting with Dan — he's so old he remembers when "bound for the office" was a different kind of sentence entirely, and his last meaningful filing was done sometime in the seventies.

Next up, handsome Cris — a man who returns every week for more, despite never appearing to enjoy any of it. Which is either the most method preparation for this week's film we've ever seen, or a deeply worrying pattern we should have flagged earlier.

Taking down his particulars in third place: the man who told me earlier this week that his dictation is enormous, and I have no reason to doubt him. It's Sidey.

And then there's me, Reegs.

Cris: Hello.

Reegs: We're back. Sidey and I had a brief hiatus.

Sidey: We went to London to see the Wu-Tang Clan.

Reegs: We saw the Wu-Tang Clan. We sang along enthusiastically. And then sadly one member wasn't there — GZA didn't show. They didn't acknowledge it in any way whatsoever.

Sidey: Didn't re-up or reload. We missed out on him. But the show was great.

Reegs: They did show us QR codes about seventeen times, though. I've never been to a gig where I've been asked to look at QR codes so many times. They've all got a lot of projects on. But they've underestimated what British people are like, because the more you told me to do it, the less I wanted to.

Sidey: They're nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and they were asking the crowd to vote. I just thought, the least rock and roll thing is wanting to be in it.

Dan: Sounds like it was good though. Lucky people. I was here holding the fort, twiddling my thumbs.

Cris: I was away too — Barcelona. Three of us went for dinner and it was €80 between us for the whole night. Significantly cheaper than the O2 in London.

Sidey: That's the currency difference — £34 for two drinks at the O2.

Dan: What were you drinking?

Sidey: Gin and tonic and rum and Coke.

Dan: That's outrageous.

Reegs: Punchy.

Dan: I was here, I watched a documentary about the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Netflix. Really interesting actually — about the guitarist who helped start the band from high school.

Sidey: I think the Red Hot Chili Peppers are one of the worst bands of all time. I like Flea. He seems like a genuinely cool person. I just can't understand why he's put up with the rest of it his whole career.

Dan: The documentary was good though. The drug problems were covered, but Flea came across as having the least of all of them.

Sidey: I believe that. Alright, shall we talk about some secretaries?

[TOP FIVE SECRETARIES]

Sidey: Have you ever had the benefit of a secretary to assist you in your working day?

Dan: No. Never had the pleasure. The role has since been rebranded as executive assistant, personal assistant, or various other things.

Sidey: Our CEO still has an executive assistant. Wanted two at one point. No. Absolutely not. My old office had a proper secretary who knew shorthand — a genuine old-school secretary. She could track down the boss anywhere, turn incompetence into a coherent workday. Impressive stuff. Right, let's get to the list.

Dan: I'll go for Doralee Rhodes from 9 to 5. Dolly Parton. What a way to make a living.

Reegs: And it was her film debut.

Dan: Yeah. She sung in it obviously. Working for a sexist boss alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda.

Reegs: And everybody assumes she's sleeping with the boss, but she's absolutely not. The song Nine to Five was nominated for an Oscar.

Sidey: Fun fact: Dolly Parton wrote and recorded an early version of Nine to Five — do you know what it was called?

Dan: Eight Till Four?

Sidey: Close. It was called Eight to the Bar. Or something like that. Anyhow.

Dan: Dolly Parton is an absolute legend. Goat. The philanthropy, the music, Dollywood.

Reegs: Right, I'm going for a twofer: Joan Holloway and Peggy Olson from Mad Men. Christina Hendricks and Elizabeth Moss. You have to talk about them together because the show deliberately sets them up as two contrasting approaches to navigating the workplace as a woman. Joan used her intelligence and social instincts — as well as her obvious assets — to gain power and recognition that was never formally acknowledged, running the whole office for years before it was official. Peggy was the opposite — dowdy, overlooked — but the quality of her work is what got her through. Two secretaries right at the heart of what that show was about.

Sidey: Great shout. Mine is Selina Kyle — Michelle Pfeiffer — from Batman Returns. She's Max Shrek's put-upon secretary, basically mistreated and almost killed, and then resuscitated in a rather unconventional way by some cats and transformed into Catwoman. Completely different person. Super sexy. There's the scene with the whip against the mannequins — apparently done in one take, and you can see the whole crew applauding on the behind-the-scenes footage.

Cris: My pick is the real-life secretary of Bernie Madoff — Eleanor Squillari — specifically as portrayed in The Wizard of Lies. The actress is Catherine Denucci. Eleanor participated in making the film because Madoff himself wouldn't cooperate, his family wouldn't cooperate, nobody would. Half the film is based on her account. And she apparently knew it was a Ponzi scheme and never said anything to anyone. She was never convicted because she was "only" a secretary. Remarkable position to be in.

Dan: For Ghostbusters, Janine Melnitz played by Annie Potts. Receptionist slash secretary slash everything, really. What I love about her is how completely unfazed she was by everything happening. All the supernatural chaos, and she treated it with exactly the same energy she'd use ordering a takeaway.

Reegs: She also ends up with Louis Tulley from Central Park West. And slash managed the Ecto containment unit.

Dan: A secretary with range.

Reegs: I've got another twofer. Dawn Tinsley from the UK Office, played by Lucy Davis — her understated love story with Tim felt very real. And Pam Beasley from the US Office, played by Jenna Fischer — her relationship with Jim is right at the heart of the American show. Two different characters, two different shows, but both really lovely portraits of an ordinary person doing an ordinary job trying to get by.

Sidey: Smithers. Obviously. Waylon Smithers from The Simpsons. More than a secretary — when Mr Burns goes away and Smithers has to walk Homer through the morning routine, it becomes clear he's been performing services that go considerably beyond the standard job description. He does it all for love, it turns out. He's unsalaried. The devotion is its own reward. There's the bit where they think the asteroid is going to end the world and he finally says "I love you" — and then has to walk it back immediately afterwards.

Cris: Miss Argentina from Beetlejuice — the green receptionist in the afterlife waiting room. She is the bureaucrat of hell. Red hair, green skin, very good at her job despite the surroundings.

Dan: Brilliant. And for my nomination — Mrs. Dolores Landingham, secretary to the President in The West Wing. Warm, steadfast, absolutely central to that show. She died eventually, which was genuinely affecting.

Reegs: And I'm going for Miss Teschmacher from Superman. Lex Luthor's assistant in the first two films. She plays herself as comically ditzy but is clearly completely switched on and knows everything that's going on. Also Lex's moral compass to whatever small extent he has one.

Sidey: We should mention Moneypenny. The definitive secretary. Lois Maxwell played her through every Connery and Roger Moore film. Then Caroline Bliss took over for the Dalton era. Then Samantha Bond through the Brosnan films. Then Naomi Harris as Eve Moneypenny — first time the character's had a first name — who was actually a field agent in Skyfall before being sidelined to a desk. Which still doesn't feel right.

[MAIN FEATURE: SECRETARY (2002)]

Sidey: Right. Secretary. Let's bring this home.

Cris: When I searched for it, I accidentally searched "The Secretary" and it didn't find it. Then when I found the poster I thought, right, I'm in.

Sidey: And Dan sat down to watch it with his family.

Dan: The first scene, yeah. That was enough. We'll get to what happens in the first scene.

Reegs: Right. The film begins in media res — in the middle of things — with Lee Holloway, our protagonist.

Dan: She's coming through an office on her hands and knees.

Reegs: In a pencil skirt, stockings, and crucially wearing a spreader bar on her wrists — meaning she can't move her arms — but she's still undertaking her administrative duties. Making coffee. Filing. She removes a document from the typewriter with her mouth.

Sidey: There's a slight blemish on the document. I don't think that can go to clients.

Reegs: There could be consequences for that kind of blemishing, Sidey. She takes the coffee in to the boss, closes the door, and then the film cuts back six months to show us how we arrived here.

Reegs: She says, with great economy, "I was released from an institution on the day of my sister's wedding." And we see her — frumpy, bad shoes, unwashed hair, extremely ill-fitting clothes. A complete contrast to what we've just seen.

Sidey: She's watching her sister get married, there's cake, everyone's happy, and she legs it upstairs and gets a box out.

Reegs: A box of personal implements. She sharpens the foot of a ballerina figurine on a whetstone. She's been self-harming, which is why she was institutionalised.

Sidey: Her family is a complete disaster. Her dad is a recovering alcoholic who falls off the wagon at the wedding itself. He hugs her and she says "I thought you'd stopped." He brushes it off and then completely derails. Her mum is highly strung and absolutely avoidant about what's happening with her husband and her daughter.

Reegs: And there's also Peter — her sort-of boyfriend. Harmless but hopelessly inadequate for what she's eventually going to need.

Cris: He's got a moustache-mullet situation going on.

Reegs: There's a scene when her parents are arguing and she picks up a hot kettle from the stove and presses it against her thigh. The pain of it overrides the emotional pain. Her self-harm is a coping mechanism — she controls it.

Sidey: Eventually, partly at her mum's insistence and partly because she needs to demonstrate she can function in normal life, she starts looking for a job. She's enrolled in secretarial school, she's actually brilliant at typing, and she starts circling adverts. One evening she goes back to retrieve her kit from the bin — she can't bring herself to throw it away — and that's when she spots the help wanted ad.

Reegs: When she arrives, all the lights are on like a motel sign — SECRETARY WANTED — at what turns out to be a law office. Her mum drives her there. As she's going in, another secretary is leaving, completely flustered, the office in chaos.

Sidey: The secretaries don't really tend to last very long.

Reegs: She meets E. Edward Grey — played by James Spader, whose casting is very deliberate given his history with sexually complex films: sex, lies, and videotape; Crash. He's loaded with baggage and he brings it all.

Sidey: And notably his character is called Mr. Grey — make of that what you will given what came later with a certain other franchise.

Reegs: The interview is strange. Quite formal. She's a bit childlike in her manner. He immediately leans into a dominant register and tells her she's overqualified and will find it dull. He insists on typewriters — no computers.

Sidey: He won't touch the phone. He uses a little dart to point to things. His estranged wife turns up at one point — very January Jones energy — stands on his coat, and basically tells Lee to tell him to sign the divorce settlement.

Reegs: He's got these huge glass cases filled with orchids that he injects with a syringe in an extremely suggestive manner. The place is dark, strange, loaded. But she takes the job and it visibly lifts her.

Sidey: He's incredibly precise. Everything must be perfect. He uses red markers to circle any mistakes in her letters.

Reegs: And there are lots of scenes loaded with sexual tension — her baiting mousetraps, her hiking her skirt up, looking back at him. There's clearly something between them that neither of them has named yet.

Sidey: Then comes the incident where he catches her self-harming at her desk. He's actually fairly tender in that moment, but he uses his authority — the position of power she's already placed him in — to say: you will never do that again.

Reegs: And she is completely freed by that. She gets rid of everything. All of it.

Cris: Into the river. Which isn't great for the environment.

Reegs: Good point, Cris.

Sidey: Not great environmentally. Very good psychologically.

Reegs: He's also been coaching her — how to answer the phone, how to project, how to represent the office. And she responds really well. She's proud of herself, and he acknowledges her for it.

Sidey: But then she makes one too many typos. And he calls her into his office. He tells her to put the letter on the desk. And she's unsure. He says, put it on the desk and bend over it. Get your face close to the letter and read it back to me.

Reegs: She starts to read it out—

Sidey: And the camera stays locked on her face, and then — whack.

Reegs: He spanks her. And she is not upset about it.

Sidey: Not at all. She's essentially exchanged self-inflicted pain for pain given by someone else. And she starts making deliberate mistakes.

Dan: She's getting what she wants. He's getting what he wants.

Cris: He eventually frames all the letters with the red circles on the office walls.

Sidey: There are a few scenes — she's on all fours on his desk at one point, there's hay, there's a carrot in her mouth, there's a saddle. All on client's time, which we did flag is a potential billing concern.

Dan: Is someone paying for this?

Reegs: But they never actually have sex. He's not interested in that. What he's interested in is the power. The dynamic. She reads up on BDSM. She gets it. She understands this is a real thing and she goes in with open eyes.

Sidey: There's a scene where she's on the phone with him and he dictates what she's allowed to eat for dinner. One spoonful of mashed potato. Peas. As much ice cream as she wants. And she's sitting at the family dinner table, living her best life.

Reegs: Meanwhile she tries to get Peter to spank her and he's absolutely no use. She's completely baffled by him. He's a lovely bloke. Wrong man entirely.

Sidey: Then Grey has a crisis of conscience. Writes a note saying he's disgusting. He shreds it, but it tells you everything about his internal conflict.

Reegs: He cuts it off — pulls back to a professional distance. And she's furious. So she puts a live worm in an envelope and posts it to him. When he opens it in front of a client, he draws round it with a red pen and tells her to get in his office immediately.

Sidey: And that's the first time things escalate beyond the spanking.

Reegs: After which she has to walk back through reception past the client and through to the bathroom.

Cris: And she meets another colleague in the next cubicle.

Reegs: And is absolutely not unhappy about any of this.

Sidey: She is delighted. Honestly. It's an amazing scene.

Reegs: Shortly after, Grey sacks her. Tells her it's over. He's genuinely conflicted about whether what he's been doing to a vulnerable young woman is ethical.

Sidey: She rebounds into an engagement with Peter, which isn't right for either of them. The wedding dress fitting happens, the mother-in-law says "just don't breathe and you'll fit into it," and Lee absolutely legs it — in the wedding dress — straight to Grey's office.

Reegs: She bursts in and tells him she loves him. He's not sure how to handle it. So he gives her a test. He tells her to sit in a chair, hands on the desk, feet on the floor, and don't move. He'll be back.

Sidey: Then he leaves. And the camera just stays on her. It gets dark.

Cris: He calls Peter, who comes in and tries to reason with her. She kicks him in a sensitive area and goes straight back to the desk.

Sidey: She thinks she's failed the test by being pulled away from it. She's frantic to get back.

Reegs: Meanwhile, Grey is watching from outside. Smiling. Because he knows.

Sidey: She stays there for three days. Eventually she becomes a minor local news story. The whole cast of the film ends up outside — her parents, her former colleagues, everyone we've met.

Reegs: Her dad comes in — he's been sober — and he doesn't really understand any of it, but he just says: I'm proud of you. That's all. And it's the best moment in the film.

Dan: If only he knew.

Sidey: Then Grey comes in and scoops her up.

Reegs: Carries her out. Very romantic despite everything.

Sidey: He bathes her, feeds her. She says it's the first time she's ever felt beautiful. And then, finally, they sleep together.

Reegs: She says, we can't do this twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He says, why not? Which is really at the crux of what their relationship is.

Sidey: Then we see the wedding — them, in black — and it's distinctly their version of a honeymoon. And then domesticity. Making the bed to exacting standards. And then she drops a cockroach into the freshly made bed.

Cris: She wants the red pen.

Reegs: Underneath the happiness, she still needs it. It's not a phase. It's who she is. And who he is. The final shot is her looking directly at the camera, and then the film ends.

Dan: Very nicely handled.

Sidey: I think it's a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of BDSM. These are two people who found each other. They're both getting something from the dynamic, genuinely and freely. He's concerned about whether he's exploiting her — and to be fair, she came from an institution. But she goes into it with open eyes, educates herself, and he never does anything she hasn't, in some form, sought out.

Reegs: I do find the substitution of one form of physical pain for another complex. But the film isn't trying to sell you on it — it's just portraying these two specific people who happen to work that way.

Dan: The key word being consensual. That makes everything here watchable and actually rather touching. Without that, it would be a very different film.

Reegs: The score is Angelo Badalamenti, by the way. Really unusual — the rhythm of the music echoes the stilted, precise way these two characters speak to each other. Because they're both performing a version of themselves. It's strange and very effective.

Sidey: Strong recommend from me.

Reegs: Strong recommend. Yes.

Cris: Still a strong recommend. Would've been an even stronger recommend if it were about twenty minutes shorter.

Sidey: It's one hour fifty-one. Strong recommend. Back to normal programming next week — Reegs is choosing.

Reegs: Indeed.

Sidey: Sidey signing off.

Reegs: Reegs.

Cris: Cris.

Dan: Dan's already gone.