
Having used an animal tactile simulation in “The Assessment,” Aaryan (Himesh Patel) spends much of his time creating skin that is painful to touch. Sometimes the flesh is too taut, and at other times very artificial, but he is definitely onto something. As for the dark humor that fuels Fleur Fortune’s bold debut, it is hard not to admire the sci-fi candy coating. Actually, the picture, which was first shown during The Toronto International Festival, is so original that perhaps it would have been even better if it had abandoned all genre conventions altogether.
Undoubtedly, taking out the dystopian feature would give Fortuné less reason to present herself as a talented designer and take advantage of stunning production design by Jan Houllevigue and vanguard music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, which makes sense how the world built within the movie tells that it is necessary for many to emphasize their presence with personally crafted details. Except, the clever conceit of the screenplay written by Mrs. & Mr. Thomas aka Nell Garfath Cox & Dave Thomas, and John Donnelly makes that ever so slightly silly when you don’t need to use commentorial artistry to connect with Aaryan and his wife Mia (Elizabeth Olsen), who undergoes a state interview for children placing purposes. So when Virginia (Alicia Vikander) arrives at the door of a beach house owned by the Tatums, Mia has no choice but to inquire what she intends to find in her potential adopters, that is why professional reticence is very much expected anyway, is rather more puzzling than one would prefer.
In their remote area of the planet, Aaryan and Mia receive suggestive adjuncts about the world around them that is cut up by a ‘new world’ the couple lives in a world, which is now able to sustain the harsh climate due to its stringent population control, and the ‘old world’. However, when the painful journey that Mia and Aaryan take to earn recognition from a third party is quite interesting, it is best to avoid the temptation that “The Assessment” presents which speaks more about the expository world in which the film is set. The only exception is Aaryan’s dark room which he devotes to creating virtual pets. Another astonishing story detail without a connection to the sci-fi series is that Virginia must spend a week at the couple’s place to get a complete understanding of them. Furthermore, she plays a role of the child they are eventually going to adopt as if looking to see how they would respond.
Vikander embodies the role of troublemaker Virginia well, showing all the quirks and mannerisms that she hasn’t really shown outside her work with Lisa Langseth in “Hotell” and the 2017 film “Euphoria.” Patel and Olsen excel too as the anxious scientists who definitely are capable of parenting a child but perhaps would not survive an entire week of this particular experiment. ‘The Assessment’ is not only engaging but cleverly crafted each day to introduce something new for Mia and Aaryan to struggle with, such as Virginia’s childish tantrums, constructing a Bucky Ball-like structure reminiscent of every IKEA horror, and organizing an unexpected dinner party for people whom they wouldn’t particularly want to invite in the first place. The only problem comes about when ‘The Assessment’ needs to return to the main theme, which it had barely touched upon before, at the very end.
While the actors involved in the film were cognizant of the implications of the story, the resolution is slightly less effective than what has come before because it throws at the viewers a number of big ideas that are never really developed. Nevertheless, even where “The Assessment” stretches its narrative scope, it manages to be pretty active in its thoughts and Fortune successfully integrates the intellectual and the visual in his piece. Sure, the film is about a civilization that has become alienated from humanity, but it is almost startling in its tenderness when it has no shortage of this quality within itself.
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