Sci-fi is the perfect playground to mirror the state of our own world in heightened situations. The future is fertile territory to take a modern concern, twist it just enough, and create a frightening alternate timeline to see where those fears might lead us. Bodily autonomy is never not a hot-button issue, particularly when it comes to pregnancy. As restrictions on a woman’s right to choose anything relating to pregnancy tightens seemingly every year, a far-off distant future wherein the government has total say in allowing the right to give birth doesn’t seem all that shocking. In fact, there’s no better time than the present to explore the darker side of that.
Taking place in an indeterminate time jump from ours, The Assessment follows married couple Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) as they attempt to bring a child into the world. The wrinkle here is that they live on a part of the earth that’s sealed off from what’s known as “The Old World.” Climate crises have forced the government to tighten the leash on civilians. If you follow the rules, it seems, you can live inside this unpolluted paradise. Unfortunately, the ability to create life and start a family, should you so choose, is entirely up to the government. You fill out an application and, if approved for the next step, they’ll send an Assessor to live with you for seven days. The role of the Assessor is to observe how you function as a couple and your responses to stressful situations; then, wholly based on their opinion, will you be granted the right to give birth.
This would all be frustrating enough for even the tightest-knit couples, but Mia and Himesh aren’t just given any Assessor––they’re given Alicia Vikander’s Virginia. At first, inscrutable, Virginia’s first day with the couple is reminiscent of Vikander’s excellent performance in Ex Machina. Robotic, icy, and unmoving, Virginia is the flesh-and-bone incarnation of every faceless bureaucrat you’ve spoken to on the phone. When day two rolls around, however, Virginia reveals herself to be up to something else entirely and the role of Assessor, the Assessed, and whether this all part of the government’s plan all begins to muddy into a deliciously entertaining swirl of madness.
Vikander, giving the most unhinged performance of her career, is a livewire, impossible to take your eyes off. Her interplay with Elizabeth Olsen, herself expertly shifting between calm and collected would-be mother and a wife at the end of her rope, becomes a delightful battle of wits. Questions about Mia and Aaryan’s marriage, commitment to the government’s “cause,” and even their character as people are all thrown into question. Director Fleur Fortuné, a longtime music-video director making her feature debut, visualizes her future world with a mix of the familiar and absurd. Well-worn couches and art pieces are intertwined with Aaryan’s lab of literal dirt where he creates digital pets as real ones were outlawed decades ago. Fortuné’s eye for future worlds has long been present throughout her work, be it various M83 music videos or an Afrofuture-inspired Chanel campaign with Pharrell. She has a distinct palette––one that allows you to sink right into the familiarity with a slight sense of unease. To buy in further, you need strong, committed actors who ground the unknown into something tangible; with Olsen and Vikander, Fortuné has two of the very best.
The actors recently sat down with us to discuss just what it was that allowed them to buy into Fleur Fortuné’s vision, playing with real-world ideas and the why it’s so fun to inhabit these kinds of roles.
The Film Stage: I dug The Assessment for many reasons, but I love that it doesn’t look like a typical dystopian film. It feels very lived-in, there’s little artifice. I love that there’s plant life around you, there’s a whole seaside, the couches are worn, Piet Mondrian windows. When you’re sinking into a world like this, a future world that’s not our own, do these visual markers help at all with that?
Elizabeth Olsen: I think so. I also think, because we filmed exteriors first in Tenerife, it informed so much of what the actual resources were that they were using to build these sets and to build the world that we were inhabiting. And Tenerife was very rocky, volcanic, windy. There were wildfires that were happening while we were shooting; the water was actually really intense. And so I think that was really informative for Fleur and for our art director. And I think they really just wanted to use these resources that were of nature and of this location and area. And it was vibrant, so it’s almost like the vibrancy allowed us a stage to play because the colors were vibrant, the sets were expansive.
Alicia Vikander: I love what you said too, Brandon. It feels lived-in, and that is, to me, what stood out as well was the fact––like you said––it’s a lot of pieces in the films within this genre that are very minimalistic and have a certain aesthetic. And what I liked was that Jan [Houllevigue], the production designer, kind of focused on the world that they’ve been in. And the memories of it, and that it was like storytelling throughout these rooms. You could see all these little pieces and the choices why people collected them. And I love the fact that if you did find plastic, that was only because that was a rare piece and was probably one of the most valued artifacts of a distant world. And that everything else was very organic.
Olsen: Plastic doesn’t decompose. It just sits there and pollutes the earth. And so we have these little pieces of plastic toys.
Vikander: Yeah that they had probably found on the beach.
Olsen: Yeah, instead of collecting glass or something.
Vikander: Yeah, exactly. So it was a lot of those things that you can’t even see in the film that were little gems for us walking on set, I think.
This film is so smart in placing the viewer in a sense of familiarity, because away from the sci-fi of it all, it’s really, at heart, a film about a couple wanting to have a kid. I love that there’s all these little moments of life that are kind of built into that, whether it’s that great scene, Elizabeth, where you and Himesh have to build the playpen together. Could you speak to that a bit?
Olsen: I think for Himesh and I––because there are some big secrets that were kept from one another and some potential conversations that they never had––that I think Himesh and I, personally, have had with our partners. So we spoke a lot about the thing that connected them most, which is this respect for one another, and for their work, and this admiration they have for each other, and so they work like a great team. So that was something that informed us. And then getting frustrated, building a playpen together, is a little out-of-character for them. I think they usually have more patience than that and are better problem-solvers. But I think the pressure that they were put under, it was fun for us. A lot of it was improvised, and so it was fun for us to figure out what the microaggressions are that start to build to actual aggressive behavior and annoyance and exhaustion with one another. And I have had this experience building Adirondack chairs that did not come in instructions.
Vikander: I’m from the world of Ikea, so I’ve been there too. But then it’s also that thing earlier like you said, lack of sleep. It’s kind of––I’m sure they’re like race horses, but at a certain point it’s just…
Olsen: Exhaustion.
Vikander: You’re just exhausted! And that’s the one thing I feel like I had heard from everyone who was a parent even before I became one myself. But that’s the truth. You’re kind of finding yourself. “Did I actually do that last night? Did I behave? Did I say that?” And it feels like it’s not me. You become a bit more out-of-character sometimes, as a parent. At least you kind of have to; I felt like I need to get to know myself in that new role, I guess.
Alicia, speaking to that a little bit, this is such an incredible and wild performance. It starts off a little stiff and robotic, similar to maybe Ava in Ex Machina. And then, as you reveal yourself, you become so childlike, almost animalistic. How do locate humanity for someone like this?
Vikander: I think that was both one of the fears I had, but also something that I had my head very clearly set on. I wanted to push myself to make sure I made choices that were bold, or that Virginia had this ability of creating these versions of herself, creating these tests. But also, I mean, by the end of the film you kind of pull the curtain away. You kind of get to understand a bit more who this woman is, and maybe why her behavior is a certain way.
And I think really, if you’re going to play a child, also have a child’s behavior… I mean, that’s the one thing that I see when I look at young people: they’re almost completely unaware. And with that, they become extremely real and in-the-moment and in a way that I feel as an adult, you admire because you feel more fabricated. And so that was something that I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a caricature. Because obviously we’re still faced by the fact that it’s going to be a person in a grown body doing these things, and that’s already going to put that kind of absurd stamp on it. So I wanted to try and not go with that and try to make it as grounded as it possibly could.
It’s wild, because I know you’re both professionals obviously, but some of those scenes veer on being so uncomfortable that I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off a little bit because they do end up becoming a little funny.
Olsen: I think you have to!
Vikander: I loved doing it!
What are those days like on set, where you know you’re going to have to shoot a food fight as grown adults?
Vikander: I think the main thing is: yes, you have food fights on a film. It’s when you add the fact that this couple is afraid of, they’re in this hold of wanting to go with it as far and not question it. That’s when…
Olsen: That’s when it’s the most uncomfortable. When they feel like they have no agency, they’re just forced to play the game.
Vikander: Yeah, everyone just wants to stop.
Olsen: I think because of that, I mean, there were some moments where we all just would enjoy how ridiculous it all was, all the time. I think the funniest thing that I loved watching was walking in on Aaryan and Virginia playing in his office, playing animals. Because I thought there was so much strange sexual energy, but also they were playing. But as a grown woman walking in on her husband, woman on his back, and yet you’re still trying-
Vikander: [Sing-song voice]: I don’t know what you’re talking about! [Both laugh]
Olsen: It’s just like, “What?” I found that so funny.
Elizabeth, I think you’re doing some of the best work of your career recently here, and then in His Three Daughters, which I also loved. These are much smaller films than I think most audiences would be used to seeing you in, because they’re used to seeing you in a larger canvas. Are there challenges or freedoms that come with being in a single location movies like these?
Olsen: I think both. I think the challenge is: how do you continue to tell a dynamic story within a really specific space that continues to move forward? And how do you create an arc that is just so contained into one location? I feel like that’s mostly the director’s job, and then we try to figure out composition, alliances shifting––that kind of dynamic, which is really, really fun for us. I adore this way of working. I think it’s like a feeling where you just… all you’re doing all day long is obsessively problem-solving as a group instead of being asked to come to set, and you just are doing your simple job of saying lines with an opinion. A lot of it is trying to craft an entire sequence together with other actors and your director and your DP, and trying to figure out how we’re all going to collectively tell the best version of the story within the space. And that’s the point of, I think, this art form.
Part of the fun of watching this movie is the performance within the performance. Alicia, you’re obviously playing multiple roles as the Assessor, and then Elizabeth, as you and Aaryan are being judged, you’re forced to put on multiple shows for Virginia. And I’m wondering, as an actor, how do you sort of compartmentalize the many hats you need to wear in this one role alone?
Vikander: I mean, it’s interesting. It’s obviously a lot of preparation work that goes into it. It wasn’t really stated anywhere, but I had an idea. There was, I think, inspiration and hints of it in the dialogue of Virginia kind of entering different ages. So that was something I tried to make a difference, in the sense that these different scenarios that the assessor builds, are based on an idea of a child in different ages. But then, when you start filming, it’s always, I feel––especially maybe a third in––you start to have these pillars of moments that have been created and things that have surprised.
And the work that Lizzy just mentioned of the problem-solving of you as a group, coming to solutions and ideas that you never thought of. And that is the beauty and why I love this job. And then with that, you kind of start then on your personal journey, it starts to morph. And then you start to feel it actually from within, deeply understanding and getting to know your character. And after a while, I always feel when you’re right in the end, I was like, “Oh, now I could have done a little bit more, gone back a few days.” Because now I feel like I fully understand this character. And the different hats end up being no different hats. They’re just very clear versions of who this person is.
Olsen: Yeah, like Alicia’s saying: you do so much prep for a story arc, understanding the journey, you’re filming out-of-order, so you need to create these pillars for yourself along the way. And I think the thing that was an element that surprised me, which was a different––I guess to answer your question more directly––was this idea that Mia could potentially get… it was on the page, but I don’t think I really embraced it until Alicia and I started having these other conversations about this more intimate relationship between the two women. This kind of transference of trust and getting caught up in the intimacy of the relationship they built. And then feeling, I mean, you need that in order for her to feel so betrayed by the end. So it is on the page, but there are just elements that I felt like I did a great ––
Vikander: We bought a lot of complexity there that maybe wasn’t. I mean, to me, one of my favorite scenes is when you’re having me take a bath.
Olsen: Oh, yeah. Same.
Vikander: Yeah. And that was when I was like, “Okay, now we’re telling a whole little story within the story here, and it feels very complete.” And suddenly I felt like that, at least, you get to know both our characters. And the film as a whole, I mean, you can even see in the edit in the end that it’s there. It’s definitely the heart of the story, our two characters.
I want to talk a bit about the politics of The Assessment. Bodily autonomy has never not been a hot-button issue––in this country especially. What drew you to telling this kind of story at this moment? How did you build trust with Fleur in working on something like this for her first feature?
Vikander: Well, to be honest, I read the script and I was already very intrigued by the story, and I felt that it really held my attention from the get-go. And then I had looked up all of Fleur’s work before I had my first conversation with her, and I was kind of utterly amazed by the visual language and the precision of her work as a director in those quite-long… it’s almost like short films. And then I actually had early rehearsal and I came on the project. And I just wanted to let her know that she was one of the most confident directors that I worked with in a while. And that, yes, it’s her first feature film, but she knew exactly the film that she wanted to tell, and had a great way of inspiring me, I felt; I thought it was also showing a bit of confidence.
I love that she’d send me, because I was thinking, “Well, how do you want me to play this character? What are your ideas?” And then I just get this text. She just starts to send me photos of a woman in an oversized suit, like a work suit, standing on her head, running in a photo across the room. And I was like: “Yes, I get that.” Suddenly I was like, “That’s it.” And that is the work that sometimes can take a while for a director to learn the language, how to communicate with their actors. And I was like, “That’s confidence. That’s really cool.”
Olsen: Answering your first question, I think the elegance of this story as living in the genre of future sci-fi––the reason why I think sci-fis are so powerful––is because there’s no pressure to directly reflect culture today, which sometimes can make you become defensive as an audience member. “Someone’s trying to teach me a lesson” or “that’s not what our president’s like,” or whatever. When you get to have the freedom of something that is off-screen, but they are values and ideas and theories that we all sometimes think about or talk about at different stages in lives. Maybe it comes up during a big situation politically, maybe it comes up in a tragedy, but we start having these conversations.
And films like this just allow you, I think, to reflect. Not to tell you how to feel or what to think or to tell you that the future’s bleak. But I think it’s about just reflection and just to stimulate those thoughts for your own life. And I never saw this film as a warning, and I don’t look into the future in a bleak way because I have too much faith in human goodness. And so I do think that this film ultimately is about that: humanity’s will to survive and primal kind of goodness for acts of service towards others. Yeah, so I think that’s what I loved about this film, is because it’s more about reflection instead of telling you a thesis statement about where we are today.
The Assessment is now in theaters.