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Reviews
The Assistant (1997)
Not quite saccharine enough
While this film may seem as innocuous as a syrupy greeting card, it has a chilling quality and an underlying message that I can't shake or swallow.
This is a story of a down and out "honest but unlucky" guy Frank (Gil Bellows) in the fourties, who feels guilty about his part in a robbery that sees an old man knocked senseless. To assuage his guilt he returns to the scene of his crime and ingratiates himself into the shopowners' household and into a job. Fleeting glimpses of the shopowner's daughter make his blood start to pump and he takes to creeping out a night to peer through the bathroom window while she bathes. The sweet lilting music during these scenes should have tipped me off that instead of considering this kind of behaviour offensive and troublesome, the filmmakers thought it was part of the romance that was building between them.
A relationship develops between Frank and Helen despite their having to sneak around, on account of her being a jewess and his being a christian. He presses her for sex, and she says no a couple times, then on the evening when she plans to tell him she will succomb to her love for him, her father realizes Frank is part of the robbery team and throws him out. Helen unknowing goes to keep her date with him later in the park, but before they meet she is attacked by Frank's old accomplice and just as he is about to rape her, in comes Frank to beat the guy up - and here's the kicker - ONLY TO TURN AND RAPE HER HIMSELF.
She is suitably upset, tells him off and spurns his continuing advances which amount by modern standards to stalking; taking a job in the neighbourhood and following her to the library. At this point I was incredulous, how could they resolve this? No they weren't really - Yes - they are going to do it - her father dies, she forgives Frank and its happily ever after - Oh I guess its okay to rape a girl if you really love her - that is not such a superb message for the modern world.