The Assessment - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

FIRST-time director Fleur Fortuné's The Assessment is a clever slice of dystopian near future sci-fi that toys with the frighteningly real, while mixing in some provocative potential scenarios.

It's a twisted, often unsettling look at humanity and a prospective future elite, that confronts climate change, parenting and mankind's pursuit of progression at the expense of nature, as well as its penchant for greed.

The setting is a remote home on a rugged coastline where hopeful parents Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are preparing to take 'the assessment' of the film's title. Both meet the criteria to be assessed in person in that they are successful and contributing to society: he as a scientist working in AI and the creation of artificial pets, she as a plant biologist working on new organic energy sources.

It is clear they are already nervous. But once their assessor, Virginia (Alicia Vikander) arrives, they are put through their paces with a seven-day series of tests that will push them to psychological extremes.

Virginia is a difficult person to get a grip on; her motives almost always unclear. Initial questions seem obvious, until they turn to sex and probe how regularly and in what form Mia and Aaryan enjoy it. Her remit even extends to watching them have sex - much to their alarm once they are caught in an intimate position overnight.

Things become more bizarre and dangerous from that point onwards. At times, Virginia seems to be behaving like the child they may well look after - throwing tantrums, tossing food, asking to play games such as hide and seek. But Mia and Aaryan are never sure what age she is pitching her performance at, nor what kind of response she is seeking from them: supportive or stern; playful or authoritarian.

There's more to follow: a dinner party is foisted upon them involving guests that are designed to wind them up, given the secrets they are concealing from their past.

There are choices to be made, too, while Virginia continues to act like a chameleon, tip-toeing between daughter figure and potential teen temptress.

Again, Mia and Aaryan struggle to uncover her motives. Is she following protocol for this kind of thing? Or has she gone rogue? Is there a secret connection between the three of them, waiting to be revealed?

Fortuné's film consistently keeps you on edge, working as hard as its characters to understand the plays. But it also asks some valid questions along the way. Insights into a world ravaged by climate change, where the elite are forced to live life under a strict, almost totalitarian set of rules (in which babies are no longer conceived naturally, but awarded by state), hint at a possible future we could be heading to. What price survival if it comes at the cost of freedom?

And what role does parenting play in all this? Is the notion of parenting even responsible given the future we may be inviting our children to grow up in? Could AI fill the void of past human experiences?

There's much to mull over, while also enjoying the intensity of the performances. Olsen and Patel make for a convincingly strained couple, prone to the same bad choices and mistakes that we can all identify with, while carrying their own weight from past relationships: Olsen wrestling with avoiding becoming the same kind of mother her own mum was to her; Patel juggling scientific advancement with past failures and traumas.

But Vikander gets the showiest of the roles, flitting between an ultra stern Mary Poppins one minute, and the inquisitive/manipulative AI figure she played in the similarly thought-provoking Ex_Machina. Her casting is another smart choice, given the film's comparisons with that Alex Garland film.

There are also some nice supporting turns from the likes of Charlotte Ritchie and Minnie Driver as two of the dinner party guests, whose presence eventually unearths some uncomfortable truths.

Problems occasionally stem from some of the more wilder swings the film takes, which flirt with rendering things a little too weird and twisted and thereby threatening to undermine some of its more emotional beats (of which the third act contains at least one). There's also the suspicion during some of the sex scenes that things are unnecessarily voyeuristic.

But just as they may divide opinion (much like the film as a whole, given its bold choices), they also contribute to the overall intrigue and unease, as audiences try to uncover the 'why' of it all. But with Fortuné's conclusion also confident enough to provide those answers, The Assessment emerges as a very stylish, if challenging, debut from a director who is definitely one to watch moving forward.

Certificate: 18

Running time: 1hr 54mins