SECRETARY (2002)

(Carla was a guest reviewer from 2006-2007.)

When I lived alone in my apartment - no roommates, boyfriends, pets, nothing, I started to develop a series of odd behavior patterns that would not have been permissible with other people in the house. I danced around in my socks, ran around naked a lot, there were occasional bouts of foul burping and other such unsavory habits. Behaving like that in my own solitary apartment was fabulous.

There are other things too. Things I'm never going to mention to many. Things that you don't really say to most people. Things that you do or think that are a little or perhaps very outside the realm of polite behavior.

But then sometimes, you meet someone and you decide to tell what it is you've been up to. And sometimes you get found out. The reaction to what you've been doing is anyone's guess. So what if the thing you've been hiding gets found out, and what if it's accepted. And what if that acceptance goes one better and is not judged harshly or with shame but reciprocated with its own odd tendencies. What if then you and your new friend relished in them. How fabulous would that be? What if you made a movie about that?

Secretary is the fairytale romance where the sentiment of people whose physiological and sexual choices, perhaps labeled as perverse, are perfectly matched. I always sort of suspected some sort of far more interesting layer was underneath all that saccharine laced Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock schlock, but, of course, you never see it. I love this movie. I find it hilarious. I love how sweet, and naive, and dirty the whole thing is. I love that this woman masturbates to type-Os and her honeymoon is up against the back of a tree. All the elements of fairytale romance are there. The wiser, attractive dominant male. The sweet naive young girl. The romantic test and the swept away and saved ending. But because neither knows what the hell they are supposed to be doing because they both bungle through the trappings and misguided notions of what "normal" relationships are, it puts them on an equal and powerful footing. When together, their secrets are safe and their relationship on an even level to experiment with anything subversive and sensual.