THE STORY – Set in a world destroyed by climate change. Part of society has created a parallel world for itself. Life is controlled and optimized, and the desire to have children is also not left to chance. The lives of a successful young couple are therefore put under close scrutiny by a female assessor over the course of seven days.
THE CAST – Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander & Himesh Patel
THE TEAM – Fleur Fortuné (Director), Dave Thomas, Nell Garfath-Cox & John Donnelly (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 114 Minutes
The Old World is dying. Humans have extended their lifespans by decades with new drugs and have had to move elsewhere, where reproduction is expressly forbidden. However, married couples can apply to have children out of utero. If they are considered to be in the top 0.1% of all applications, couples will undergo an assessment to determine their fitness to be parents. Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are nervous about their upcoming assessment but know they’ll make great parents. They even tell their assessor, Virginia (Alicia Vikander), this, although she confirms their suspicion that everyone does the same. As part of the top-secret assessment process, Virginia will stay with the couple for seven days and immediately let them know of her decision, which will be considered final.
Fleur Fortuné has a lot on her mind for her debut feature, “The Assessment,” as it touches on not just parenting and the expectations placed on parents (by both society and themselves) but also on environmental and class issues. She brilliantly lays out the state of the world through a series of announcements made by Mia and Aaryan’s smart house in the opening sequence, telling the audience everything they need to know to understand the uniqueness of the couple’s position and why being a parent is such a rare thing in this world. Mia, a botanist, has built an incredible greenhouse that provides them with plenty of food, while Aaryan has a special room in their house where he works on creating virtual pets, an innovation that helped many overcome the loneliness of a childless life but which Aaryan still struggles to perfect (the feel of hair and skin have proven difficult to replicate with accuracy). They have everything a happy couple in this world could possibly ask for, and it’s Virginia’s job to determine if they can handle the responsibility of parenting alongside the other things they need to do to survive.
For the majority of the assessment, Virginia acts just like a child, refusing to eat, throwing temper tantrums, and generally making messes. Vikander turns in an uncanny performance, fully embodying a child at different ages. Her eyes get big and slightly glossy, as though her brain is operating at half power. The actress believably hollows out her heart and mind to exert purely childlike actions in a way that is completely disarming. Mia and Aaryan don’t know how to react to her, especially at first, but as they figure out what she’s doing, they adjust their approach and do their best to treat her as they would a child. But since Virginia is a full-grown adult, at what point do her actions stop being childlike and start being malicious? Mia questions this almost immediately, wanting to stop the assessment before Virginia causes irreparable harm, but Aaryan insists they play along. The whole concept of the assessment puts the lie to societal expectations placed on parents, as everyone expects parents always to be perfect. The problem is that there’s no such thing as a “perfect” parent. The relationship between parent and child is constantly evolving, and success as a parent is determined by how you learn from your mistakes. Mia and Aaryan can pick up the pieces and move on from their mistakes with Virginia, always managing to smooth things over with her whenever things go wrong. Olsen and Patel invest just as much into their characters as Mia and Aaryan invest into their parenting, becoming increasingly frayed as the assessment continues.
The problem is that these scenes, which make up the bulk of the film, can feel repetitive, as they follow the same structure and make the same point: Virginia acts out, either Aaryan or Mia missteps, they work through their emotions, and everyone comes back together stronger. While the stakes in each scene escalate, that doesn’t stop the scenes themselves from falling into familiar rhythms, making the film feel slightly longer and more slowly-paced than it is. However, given the originality of the world-building and the stand-out production design, the film never bores.
Fortuné has made something quite special for her debut feature, a fully fleshed-out world of which we only see a small part. And yet, by the end of “The Assessment,” the audience feels like they live there too, right alongside Mia, Aaryan, and Virginia. That’s a rare talent, and if this is where Fortuné is starting her career, there’s no doubt that she will go on to bigger, better things.
