"Des Moines, Iowa"

Overall the film Secretary is frankly quite terrible, but in the film's climax (no pun intended) Maggie Gyllenhaal asks James Spader (a thoroughly hateable man, again...as in Crash) myriad questions about his life, finally he answers a single one, "where are you from?" A figure of great malice, arrogance, annoyance and creulty, Spader's lawyer answers, "Des Moines, Iowa." It was at this point that Brian and I cheered. Loudly. Well longer than justified by the moment.

So why is the film bad? Having a friend who was into cutting earlier in life, I'm neither shocked nor intrigued by the practice. It doesn't seem foreign and therefore exotic or amazing. I understand the motivation, I've punched walls wanting to feel phsyical pain because the emotional pain was too complex. So it's not a novel concpet to me, it lacks shock value. Frankly it's painful for me to see--reminds me too much of the cuts on my friend's hands. After that section (the cutting)of the film we get sparse and fairly boring dialogue and S and M. I guess I am to be shocked by this. But after fighting on behalf of SECURE for a semester I'm not shocked. For non-obies, SECURE was a club that wanted to teach its members about S&M. I basically gave up my semester to fight for their right to exist. I got to play whip (no pun...just a reference to the legislative position) for the General Faculty and Student Senate. They needed to be chartered and I spent 2 months fighting, lobbying, cajoling, educating, and strong arming professors and administrators into allowing a vote--which we lost in a tie. (My hard count had us winning--but a supportive professor was forced to leave the meeting to tend to a collicky child, because this meeting unlike every other one lacked the usual college provided childcare). So while BDSM isn't my cup of tea I don't think it's terribly shocking either.

Mainly, I'm frustrated by the terrible dialogue. The film has the pacing of a Lynch work, but it's not that challenging. It's just slow to be slow. I guess none of the films angles struck me as innovative, appealing, interesting, or shocking--just annoying. But, I am deeply pleased that Spader is from Des Moines. Yes, he is. Of course he is.