If you were under 24 hour surveillance for any random given week of your life, would you come out of it looking like an admirable person? A productive member of society? It’s this rather frightening question that is pondered by dystopian sci-fi The Assessment, following a couple in a grim, semi-apocalyptic future as they are ‘assessed’ by a live-in state authority as to whether or not they will be deemed good enough to be allowed to have a child. It’s an interesting premise that really only takes The Assessment so far, its initial intrigues eventually giving way to a simply crushing lack of believability – though there is definitely stuff that works here, the stuff that doesn’t is so unconvincing that the film as a whole is less than the sum of its parts.
This couple is Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel), two high-value citizens in what remains of human civilisation (most of the planet, referred to as ‘The Old World’ has been utterly ravaged by climate disaster), with her an expert in botany and nutrition, and him a gifted VR programmer. As two people clearly building for humanity’s future, they believe in bringing a new life into the world, and so they apply for ‘assessment’, which is carried out across one psychologically nightmarish week by Virginia (Alicia Vikander).
Vikander is the only part of The Assessment that constantly works, Virginia switching between two modes, both very well-played. One is a cold, invasive bureaucrat who asks deeply personal questions, watches Mia and Aaryan have sex to determine their relationship’s strength, and doles out tests with opaque purposes. The other is much stranger – without warning, Virginia will start play-acting as a ‘child’, behaving as if she’s four-ish years old, making messes, running off, picking favourites out of her ‘parents’, and generally being a nuisance.
It’s a bizarre role that brings out what I think is Vikander’s career-best performance, walking the line between human and alien with precision and humour. It’s genuinely creepy to see a grown woman, especially one as sharp and graceful as Vikander, behave like a toddler with full commitment, and this particular spell is never broken. Elsewhere, though, things are much, much shakier (even the other two performances, Olsen mostly serviceable and Patel just downright dull). This world and its rules really feel like they’re being made up on the fly by debut director Fleur Fortune and the three writers instead of well-thought through; there’s a reveal late on that the government has managed to solve ageing, which is tough to swallow in a society where everything else is apparently a disaster.
This same fundamental thinness extends to the character work. Dialogue is flimsy and impersonal – you really never get a sense that Mia and Aaryan are an actual couple through their conversation and they often speak and act in ways that simply make them seem stupid. This is particularly pronounced towards the ending, which is only made possible by completely moronic decision-making that rings hollow and untrue. It’s a frustrating note to finish on, fitting for a film that fascinates on the surface, but has nothing going on beneath to make it stick.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 