Secretary (2002) on Netflix
Lee Holloway, just out of a mental hospital, takes a typing job with the demanding attorney E. Edward Grey. Her obedience arouses him, and he begins to command her.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.8/10110,137 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
After a stay in a mental hospital following an incident of self-harm, Lee Holloway returns to her family home in Clermont, Florida, where her father's drinking drives the household arguments and her newly married sister has moved into the pool house. Lee has learned typing, and she applies for a secretarial post with E. Edward Grey, an eccentric attorney whose office runs on typewriters. Grey tells her that she scored higher than anyone he has interviewed and that the work is dull; she answers that she likes dull work, and he hires her. Her typing errors irritate him, while her obedient manner draws a different response. When he learns about her self-harm, he orders her to stop.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Secretary (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In one instance the filmmakers accidentally obtained shooting rights for the wrong park, so Gyllenhaal encouraged them to hastily shoot the required park scene anyway, without permission, while crew members distracted the local police.
- Steven Shainberg said he wished to show that BDSM relationships can be normal, and was inspired by the film My Beautiful Laundrette, which he feels normalized gay relationships for audiences in the 1980s.
- Lines of dialogue were changed for the film: Lee's statement "I'm so stupid" became the fantasy-sequence cry "I'm your secretary", which the director thought far more "celebratory".
- The office spaces of Edward and Lee took form after two years of planning by Shainberg and production designer Amy Danger; wanting the office to feel homemade and express Edward's interest in the growing of plants, Danger juxtaposed a natural decor with a predominantly artificial outside world.
- The film's exploration of a BDSM romantic relationship and Spader's character bearing the last name "Grey" have drawn comparisons to the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise, with some suspecting the former inspired the E. L. James series.
SPOILER
Secretary does not end the way its source does: the ending of the story was changed to give a more positive outcome to the relationship.
