‘The Assessment’: Life Is Long, Stressful and Not Very Fruitful in Fleur Fortuné’s Dystopian Drama

Sandra Miska

French director Fleur Fortuné feature debut “The Assessment” is the latest film to imagine what procreation might look like in the not-so-distant future. Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel are Mia and Aaryan, a pair of scientists who long to be parents. But they cannot try to have a baby without approval, as circumstances in their dystopian society allow for the government to dictate who gets to have children. In order to be one of the chosen few, the couple must endure a grueling week-long assessment done by a sole person, assessor Virginia (a terrifically cold Alicia Vikander). Virginia moves into their home during this time and conducts what turns into an increasingly intense and unnerving experience. 

With her conservative attire and hair pulled tightly back, Virginia does not initially appear to be much of a threat, but the deeply personal questions she asks Mia and Aaryan shortly after her arrival are just the beginning, and her collection of every body fluid they produce is hardly the most intrusive thing she does. Claiming that she needs to know about every aspect of their relationship, she watches them engage in sexual activity that first night. Believe it or not, it gets even weirder from there, as she proceeds to pretend to be a child in order to see how the prospective parents will react in sticky situations. Virginia keeps the pair and the viewer on edge as we cautiously await her next move. To complicate things and add to the already thick tension, Mia starts to suspect that the assessor is attracted to Aaryan, and the lines between the real Virginia, her child character, and her professional persona become increasingly blurred.

Fortuné does an impressive job of blending the natural world here with a futuristic one, and there’s a striking contrast between Mia and Aaryan’s smart house and its unforgivably windy seaside surroundings. Even Mia and Aaryan represent different sides of the coin, as she works with soil and plants in her lush greenhouse, while he develops virtual pets in his dark man cave, replacing the real ones that were exterminated by the government. The remote location serves to amplify the feeling of isolation the viewer experiences with this strange threesome, and information about the outside world slowly trickles in. There’s repeated mention of the “old world” where dissidents have been sent to, including Mia’s mother, although we never receive a satisfying explanation about the missing woman’s alleged transgressions. In this new world, advances have been made to stop the aging process, but at a price.

Mia and Aaryan’s world is opened up by Virginia in the film’s centerpiece scene in which she sets up an awkward dinner party, inviting the couple’s respective exes and their current partners. Minnie Driver steals the show as Evie, the wife of a professor (Nicholas Pinnock) with whom Mia previously had an affair. The older woman has some interesting thoughts about procreation and the state of the new world that are worth a listen. She is 152 years old, after all.

Finally, the assessment comes to an end, and Virginia exits Mia and Aaryan’s lives almost as abruptly as she entered, or at least she tries to. Afterwards, she goes through an emotional reckoning, while Mia tries to get answers to some questions and find her own peace. While both Vikander and Olsen are brilliant in their final scene together, the ending is drawn-out and overwrought, with Fortuné working overtime to get the viewer to feel something that is unearned.

“The Assessment” releases March 21 in theaters nationwide.