The Assessment

In the future depicted in The Assessment, everyone gets to live a calm life but the government maintains a strict control of resources. As part of that, and to ensure the world doesn’t become overpopulated, it decides who can and can’t have children.

Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) are nervous about their application to become parents, but they have everything going for them. They live in a peaceful, secluded home where Aaryan has a studio for his genetic research and Mia maintains a greenhouse as part of her work as a botanical scientist. The two are assigned an assessor named Virginia (Alicia Vikander), who comes to evaluate them in their home over seven days.

Virginia asks them invasive and awkward questions about everything from how they first met to how often they have sex. But this is just the beginning as Virginia puts Mia and Aaryan through simulations of the potential horrors children can inflict on their parents. As the tests become increasingly abstract and confounding, the right answers seem less obvious and the assessment foments a rift between the couple.

This debut from director Fleur Fortuné is striking for its precise control of story, performance, and production design. Olsen and Patel capture the psychological turmoil of two people having their lives forensically examined, while Vikander gives an exceptional performance that’s surprising all the way to the end.

ROBYN CITIZEN

Content advisory: themes of suicide; sexual content