‘The Assessment’: Toronto Review

Dir: Fleur Fortune. UK/Germany/US. 2024. 114mins 

Exploring a dystopian future in which couples must prove themselves worthy of being parents, The Assessment is an intriguing premise in search of a more successful execution. First-time filmmaker Fleur Fortune draws on her background in music videos to deliver a strong sense of composition and mood.Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel are appealing as the married pair, with Alicia Vikander delivering a gutsy performance as the unconventional assessor who will live with them for a week. Unfortunately, this thoughtful sci-fi thriller becomes predictable and convoluted long before the couple’s seven-day evaluation is complete.

A strong sense of composition and mood

The Assessment premiered as a Special Presentation in Toronto and now heads to London before eventually catering to adult audiences and adventurous date-night crowds. Olsen and Vikander’s star power is likely to attract viewers, and the script’s edgy futuristic bent may draw comparisons to Vikander’s similarly chilly Ex Machina. Amazon Prime Video secured international rights (excluding Germany, where the film will be distributed by Capelight Pictures) ahead of the film’s premiere.

Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Patel) live in a world wracked by global warming and societal unrest, where the state has decreed that no one may have a child without first undergoing a comprehensive one-week assessment. Believing they would make great parents, they welcome their assessor Virginia (Vikander), into their home. Initially, Virginia asks them questions about their family history, personalities and sexual habits, but on day two she surprises them by pretending to be a bratty toddler, testing their ability to deal with an unruly child. This unexpected playacting unnerves Mia and Aaryan — especially because, over the course of the week, they don’t always know which version of Virginia they’ll encounter. 

Fortune, who has co-directed videos for artists like M83 and Drake, works with production designer Jan Houllevigue to bring a minimalist beauty to the couple’s spartan home, where most of The Assessment is set. Simple but effective special effects hint at what has occurred outside those walls, with the screenplay making alarming references to a New World, a nightmarish Old World and a controversial, fractious border that has been hastily set up between them.

But the anxiety of the age is most pointedly reflected in Mia and Aaryan’s nervousness about meeting Virginia, whose slicked-back hair and terse manner initially make her seem almost robotic. Virginia is a representative of this near-future’s unfeeling totalitarian state, and she easily intimidates this loving, unassuming couple, who desperately want to demonstrate not only that they are deserving of having a child, but also that they have been useful contributors to this dystopian society. (Mia works with plants and soil, while her husband designs realistic-looking artificial pets — a necessary innovation at a time when actual pets have been banned.)

Once Virginia shifts into becoming an obstinate child, The Assessment mines the dark comedy of Mia and Aaryan having to contend with a full-grown woman throwing a tantrum, refusing to eat and demanding to be carried. Vikander’s coy smile during these transformations hints that perhaps Virginia is savouring the moment. Aaryan keeps assuring Mia that these tests are intended to challenge their patience — if they stay calm and work as a team, surely they will illustrate their merit as prospective parents. But the more that the ’toddler’ prefers Aaryan to his wife, the more a wedge is driven between the couple — which Virginia will soon exploit in other ways. Is all this really part of the test? Or is there something personal and vindictive about the way Virginia is running this specific assessment?

As one might expect, certain boundaries will become blurred once the couple starts caring for an emotionally needy child who is actually an adult. But those twists lose their potential provocation because they play out fairly predictably. In addition, Mia and Aaryan are so underdeveloped that the audience cannot fully appreciate the supposedly profound fissures this assessor has found in their seemingly perfect marriage. 

Perhaps most surprising of all is the fact that, for a narrative so invested in Mia and Aaryan’s quest to become parents, The Assessment ends up offering little commentary — either satirical or sincere — on the phenomenon of raising children. The picture has been worked out on a visual level — the immaculately sterile images evoke a future in which life’s pleasures, like having a family, have been wiped clean — but the script never explores those deeper themes.