Can a dark film really be a romantic love story when the characters are involved  with S&M and B&D, and are as deeply troubled as Edward and Lee are?  Well, with the fascinating "Secretary", obviously this is true.  I believe this film will be virtually impossible to review in such a way to give a true feel and description for what this film is like, but I will try to do just that.

      Right away we are introduced to Lee who has just arrived home from a stay from some sort of treatment program.  Upon discovering that her father's drinking binges have started up again, she veers right back towards the edge of darkness where we find out that she is involved in self-mutilation.  In an attempt to change her life, she takes a job as a secretary for a strict and emotionally closed-off lawyer, Edward Grey.  At first, Lee is doing all the simple mundane chores of a secretary - answering the phones, typing letters, and so forth.  Gradually, however, Edward becomes more dominating and starts to severely reprimand Lee for typos.  This leads to a spanking session where to both their surprises, they discover that this fulfills a strange taboo desire for both of them.  Lee begins to make mistakes intentionally so that she can be reprimanded by more spankings while at the same time, Edward is tortured by his inability to give up this domination addiction.  And then when Lee begins to express romantic and true feelings for him, Edward becomes scared and abruptly puts an end to the relationship.  Lee is crushed because she truly loves Edward and she begins to make plans to get their relationship back.

      This film is really not so much about the S&M, domination and sex that attracts these two people, but more about tackling the real psychological reasons and desires of why people behave this way.  Lee uses submission to these activities as a way to escape her self-mutilation tendencies.  And Edward is not only terrified of his own desires which he can't stop, but is afraid that Lee is in love with him and that he can't handle this honest affection from someone.

      It would be easy to fail at making such a movie with risking unintentional laughs happening along the way.  However, Shainberg has created a realistic story here where everything is believable and you feel for the pain these two people are going thru and you care what happens to them.  There are plenty of real laughs mixed in with the darker events going on and the film is entertaining from beginning to end.  The acting is superb with James Spader taking his "Sex, Lies and Videotape" character to even a deeper place.  But the real star of this film is Maggie Gyllenhaal who has a career-starting, breakout role.  She is both adorable and disturbed as Lee and her performance is one of the most engaging by an actress I've seen in a long while.  Just on this performance alone, she should be getting many important roles in the near future.

      Don't get turned off and not see this film because of the S&M and other not ordinary sexual themes that are involved in this film.  Go see this one for it's originality of story and the performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal.