Not going to be for everyone but if you're patient....

The core of the movie is a scene where the titular assistant played by Julia Garner goes to see head of Human Resources at the Miramax-like company where she works. It's one of best scenes in any movie for some time in my view. It shows in forensic detail how historically it has been impossible for employees in such companies (maybe in all companies) to reign in or do anything much about (sexually and otherwise) abusive bosses a la Harvey Weinstein. The Assistant in this way provides a similar service to the early eps. of Ava Duvernay's When They See Us in which audiences get to see and experience exactly *how* false confessions can and have historically been extracted from young, scared, powerless, easily confused suspects.

The Assistant *does* take its time getting to the core scene: the film leads with about 45 minutes of Jeanne Dielman (1976)-style microscopically-observed, stereotypically female drudgery, albeit in an office. That will be too much of a hurdle for a lot of viewers (if you're the sort of person who'd never in a million years watch, say, Jeanne Dielman or Once Upon a Time In Anatolia or Solaris or anything by Bela Tarr then The Assistant probably won't be for you either).

The cinematography opens up a bit in the film's post-core home stretch with one particularly ingenious killer shot, and Garner's performance in this come-down period is especially good as someone who's crushed mute by her situation, and who's hanging on by her fingernails.

The Assistant isn't a pleasant or even especially hopeful experience but I'm very pleased to have seen it. Remembering Mark Twain's defn. of a classic novel - a book no one wants to read but everyone wants to have read - I'd guess that The Assistant is destined to be something of a minor classic. An 8/10 from me, but I suspect I'll score it higher than that in future.