Introduction
In the near future, where parenthood is strictly controlled, a couple’s seven-day assessment for the right to have a child unravels into a psychological nightmare. Thus, forcing them to question the very foundations of their society and what it truly means to be human.
Synopsis
Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are happy and productive, each working to better the world into which they were born. Flawed though it may be. Living under an atmospheric dome and taking government-prescribed oxygen tablets, they toil at their individual proclivities. Mia cultivates plants while Aaryan perfects simulated pets. They love and trust and support one another instinctively, and their lives are full. The only thing they’re missing is a child.
The film opens the day before they are expecting their assessor to arrive and begin the process by which their dreams of parenthood can become a reality. When Virginia (Alicia Vikander) first arrives, she is prim and precise. She’s not entirely without warmth, but it’s a subtle flame in need of fanning. She tells the couple that the assessment will be total and necessarily invasive. But that their honesty and vulnerability can only help them to prove their worth.
Discussion
To go on with a synopsis of The Assessment would be to cheat the viewer out of a truly singular and evocative experience. Suffice it to say that Virginia has only seven days to observe the couple and discern how capable and sensitive they could be in times of duress. As such, she can’t leave such scenarios to chance.
The nightmare plays out through twists and turns, from assembling IKEA-style yurts to surviving a dinner party with “friends” and extended family. Secrets are unearthed. Bonds are tested, and nerves are splintered. The Assessment is as much a test of what we, the audience, can endure as it is for the characters onscreen.
Alicia Vikander utilizes the inhumanity perfected in Ex Machina to bring Virginia to a rigid, methodical life. She takes her assignment deathly seriously, wrestling against empathy or sympathy as she performs her duty. Elizabeth Olsen is categorically brilliant as Mia. She’s conflicted through generational trauma as well as the universal suffering of a world ravaged by environmental revolt.
Himesh Patel provides warmth and humor throughout while nurturing a wounded soul that suits perfectly his assigned role in the New World Order. The power of this trio’s actions, reactions, and emotions propels the film forward through what could have been a single-set-slog were it not for their captivating agility.
Further Analysis
For the setting, production designer Jan Houllevigue has created a hidden earth in a quarry of habitability. Hyper-modern minimalism coexists with rock and water in a stark ballet of architecture and nature. John Donnelly’s script combines humankind’s worst fears realized: environmental ruin sending the malady to the root of humanity as we push one another away in a desperate bid to preserve the self.
It’s an adoption nightmare turned up to eleven, addressing the fears every prospective parent must wrestle with as they ponder what it means to bring a child into a world on the brink of implosion. The Assessment challenges not only individual and familial relationships but also humanity’s relationship with itself and the world we’ve been consigned to steward.
Conclusion
The Assessment walks in the footsteps of dystopian classics by Orwell and Huxley. The film practically demands the viewer to imagine its destination, consistently surprising and shocking its viewers along the way. Director Fleur Fortuné plays each character’s emotional journey like a harp at times, a distorted electric guitar at others.
The tension is stretched to extremes that shatter our shoebox notions of existence and persistence in a world that demands absolute devotion to survival and constant effort to maintain the bonds of love. To view The Assessment is to leave changed.
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