It is still dark when Jane (Julia Garner) leaves her home for work, sleeping in the back of the car as it moves towards the seductive Manhattan skyline. Upon arrival, she prints reports, schedules flights, and cleans her boss’ office surrounded by no one. As the day progresses, coworkers (usually men) leisurely take their seat and begin their day. Even once the office is fairly full, Jane has yet to speak to anyone, receiving occasional nods as she asks people about their weekend. While The Assistant is a timely film for a moment overflowing with stories of abuse in nearly every sector of the economy, Kitty Green’s attention to the mundane isolation women face on a daily basis makes this deadpan horror film particularly powerful.

Inspired by the Weinstein scandal, the film follows Jane, a young woman who aspires to be a film producer, working as an…