Most tender workplace romances don’t begin with spankings and dead earthworms, but that’s exactly how a liason begins between Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and her boss, attorney E. Edward Grey (James Spader). After being released from a mental hospital for issues related to self-mutilation, Holloway gets a job as a secretary for Grey, and the pair soon create a fairly extreme sexual dynamic. Spader, who has played sketchy individuals of this caliber perfectly so well before (Steven Soderberg’s Sex, Lies and Videotape and the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel Less Than Zero), brings a surprising vulnerability to a man who is aroused by giving his secretary a really hard time at work. And Gyllenhaal brings a swagger to a young woman whose need for acceptance — at extreme levels — ends up making her stronger in the long run. Without any actual sex happening, there’s some pretty ridiculously kinky behavior that ends up going on at the office, but it’s a form of twisted that somehow turns into a strange love story. As usual, the $3 tickets at the Troc for a movie go towards a drink.
Secretary (2002)
Saturday, August 27
Midnight
Trocadero Theatre
1003 Arch St., Philadelphia
Tickets $3
