It is the story of a young woman, Lee Holloway, who has recently been
released from a mental institution for self-cutting. Trying to find
her place in the world (despite still living with the family that
triggered her self-destructive behavior,) she takes typing classes
and applies for her first job as a secretary. She is hired by
E. Edward Gray, a nervous lawyer who is historically very demanding of
his secretaries, and may even have been seeking out "submissive" women
for the job. The boss/employee relationship, symbolized by the red
sharpie marker he uses to circle her typing mistakes, begins to develop
on several fronts, with an emotional intimacy welling up behind the surface
of increasingly severe demands by Gray, reaching into the decidedly kinky.
(And at some point, she beings to purposefully leave the typos in.)
As their romance progresses, the audience is left to make up its own mind about the couple. On the one hand, the boss/employee, pleasure/pain relationships don't seem to match the criteria for healthy relationships we've set. On the other hand, what they have seems better for Holloway than what she has with her family and "regular boyfriend". She really seems to blossom from a mousy young girl to a surprisingly confident woman. Gray is a bit puzzling; at times he seems very knowing, and able to analyze Holloway's needs and her cutting (and get her to stop), but he constantly expresses a sense of "what am I getting myself into." A big part of the progression of the relationship is shown as a montage, which I thought failed to do it justice. Also, the first half of the film as an oddly retro quality, as if Holloway's Florida home and Gray's office were lifted from the 1960s (certainly some of trappings of the boss/secretary setup will strike some as a throwback.)
People who haven't given much thought about the less "vanilla" part of their lives may want to give this flick a miss; others may find it rather sexy, an interesting study in people finding other people who can satisfy their emotional and physical needs.
The film seems to be getting a primarily "arthouse" release, so you may have difficulty seeing it until it comes out on video/DVD. This site has a trailer for the movie which actually does a good job of getting the feel of the film across.
