#TIFF24: “THE ASSESSMENT” REVIEW

By Nicholas Porteous

Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and her partner Aaryan (Himesh Patel) want a child. The only problem—they’re living in a dystopian future, the planet is a wreck, and the government has decided any would-be parents must be assessed up front. The criteria for a pass into parenthood is unclear, and the test is designed that way, but the decision is made by assessors, who spend several days observing, testing and judging their subjects. Enter Virginia (Alicia Vikander), a steely-eyed, humourless agent who—when she isn’t probing our leads with questions—takes on the physicality and persona of an extremely difficult child. Throwing food, picking fights, peeing in things that aren’t toilets—it’s all part of The Assessment, which squanders an interesting premise on a questionable group of characters.

It’s difficult to buy into the stakes of the film—whether or not our couple will be granted the right to conceive—because The Assessment doesn’t show any evidence these people actually love—or even like—each other, beyond lip service. There’s no chemistry here, and in fact they spend most of their time becoming less and less invested in each other—not much of a leap from where they begin. The Assessment also features a very troubling depiction of sexual assault, and seems to be implicitly blaming the victim for a crime that’s not their fault in any way. Olsen manages to find an interesting balance between the absurd world she lives in, and the gravity of her desire to bring another human into it. Further evidence she can make anything work. Meanwhile, Patel spends a good deal of his screen time in a big empty virtual room, reciting random numbers and commands that we aren’t supposed to understand in an effort to make digital fur texture feel just right. Vikander makes big swings in every scene, whether she’s pretending to be a kid or a rigid bureaucrat with no bedside manner, but I found her performance too mannered, and it’s impossible to empathize after a scene in the latter half of the Film. My assessment: you already know.

The Assessment screens at TIFF ‘24:

Friday September 13th at 2:00 PM at Scotiabank

Saturday September 14th at 2:45 PM at Scotiabank