Secretary

Secretary is a 2002 comedy-drama about Lee Holloway, a young woman who has just returned home after a stay in a psychiatric hospital. She has a history of self-harm and finds life with her stifling family difficult, so she teaches herself to type and applies for a job at the law office of E. Edward Grey. Though she has no work experience, Grey hires her as his secretary, and at first the tasks are ordinary: typing letters, filing documents and making coffee. Before long, the relationship between employer and employee develops into something far more intimate and controlling. The arrangement draws notice from Lee's family and from Peter, the boyfriend she sees intermittently.

Steven Shainberg directed the film, the first in the chronological list of his three features, from a screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee and James Spader plays Mr. Grey, with Jeremy Davies, Lesley Ann Warren, Stephen McHattie and Patrick Bauchau among the credited cast of 28. Shot for a modest 4 million dollars, it returned about 9 million worldwide, a solid result for its scale.

On IMDb the film holds 6.9 out of 10 from roughly 109,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.8 from about 2,000. A critics' rating of 7 out of 10 across 157 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.