Secretary

James Spader plays another slightly sexually deviated guy. A lawyer who needs a secretary. Instead of getting off on car-crashes, though, he's into control. And the details matter to him. The minutiae counts.

In fact the obsessive control is a smoke screen in front of quite a traditional love story. Shy girl meets confident boy. Shy girl turns out to be more confident than confident boy, who turns out to be rather shy. Confusion in relationship: girl is in love and will do anything to prove it, boy is not so sure about big commitment, wrestles with his masculinity, but eventually acquiesces. Happy ever after.

The film cleverly exposes the internal politics of male - female relationships. The sugar-sweet ending is what we see when we look at a happy couple. The mechanisms that drive this happiness are far deeper, and potentially disturbing. But between two people, and two people alone, who is to say what is wrong?