“When every family benefits from the family planning service, every village will rejoice and blossom.” That was the message on the hoarding signage near the entrance to the town of Bobai in Guangxi, China, leftover from the one-child policy days. Author Ma Jian encountered it and writes for The Guardian, “In China, procreation and childbirth are, like every facet of human life, deeply political.” Authoritarianism can be gauged by the proximity of the government to your genitalia; when you need the state’s permission to have or not have a child, then you know that state is teetering on tyranny’s edge. However, what if totalitarianism is the accepted solution to humanity’s survival? That’s one of the questions posed in The Assessment.
Think of it this way — what if you were stuck with others on a spaceship for three years, with exactly enough oxygen to last three years and a day; what would you do if a woman became pregnant, and you knew that the addition of a living, breathing human could doom all of you? In a sense, it’s a variation on the old lifeboat dilemma. What is more important, the individual (and the family unit) or the society at large (or the species)? There I go again — yet another question provoked by The Assessment, and just one of many.
Who Deserves to Be a Parent at the End of Time?
4.5
/5
Release Date
March 21, 2025
Runtime
114 Minutes
Director
Fleur Fortune
Writers
John Donnelly, Nell Garfath Cox, Dave Thomas
Pros & Cons
- Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Olsen prove themselves as two of today’s best actors.
- Endless profundity in a film that provokes countless questions.
- Beautiful filmmaking and a great setting, with a surprising ending that leaves you wanting more.
As you could likely surmise, The Assessment is about state-controlled procreation. It takes place far into the future inside a state-controlled dome of sorts, which is either an isolated area on Earth or a terraformed section of another planet. It’s safe from the intense heat, nuclear radiation, utter chaos, and aging of “The Old World,” which is presumably full of all the people who couldn’t afford tickets on Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ hierarchic rocket ride. We get the sense that the very privileged are living inside this protected dome, thanks to their great contributions to society (along with, of course, their wealth).
We’re introduced to Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Patel) at their spacious, hypermodern home along the rocky shores of some vast, isolated area. Mia has a beautiful greenhouse where she uses her botanical acumen to cultivate various plants for food and scientific study, and Aaryan is a famed computer engineer of sorts. In his strange underground lab (really just a dark void), Aaryan works on creating perfectly realistic yet holographic, AI-driven “life” that is fully touchable and practically sentient, from a cat to an ape. Mia and Aaryan seem in sync and in love, and are ready to add a child to their family of two.
In their world, any couple who wishes to have a child must undergo the titular “assessment,” in which an agent of the state essentially lives with the couple for a week to observe their behavior and understand what they would be like as parents. Not just everyone can have a child; there are limited resources. While it reeks of eugenics, one can see (and maybe even condone and promote) the reasoning here. What if every pair of parents had to undergo psychological, intellectual, economic, and physical testing? Would society be “better” as a result? After all, some people are certainly not fit to have kids, right? Or is that… totalitarian? There’s those questions again…
Elizabeth Olsen & Alicia Vikander Pass the Test and Stun the Rest
Alicia Vikander plays Virginia, the cold and ruthless assessor. The majority of the film consists of Virginia’s various tests, how she tries to trip up Mia and Aaryan with mind games, and whether the couple can make it through the week and harness all those fruits of the spirit which create great parents — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Any parent will find themselves relating to this film and suffering with it, and all of us will be consumed with the film’s profound provocations. Is there such a thing as a “good” parent? Is it even possible to be considered “parenting material” and to have what it takes before you actually have a child and learn alongside that kid? Is it okay to not be a “good” parent, and what are the consequences?
It’d be a shame to ruin all the ways in which Virginia tests this couple throughout their one-week assessment, but suffice it to say, Vikander gives the performance of a lifetime here. She’s perhaps most watchable and entertaining when she’s loose and relaxed, as in the great series Irma Vep, but she undoubtedly reaches levels of artistry in The Assessment that most actors could simply never dream of. It’s a deeply methodical and vulnerable performance without any ego or vanity, and you’ll surely drop your jaw once or twice while watching it unfold.
Then there’s Elizabeth Olsen, who gives a completely different kind of performance but a nonetheless masterful one. She’s, of course, unbelievably beautiful, and has aged into one of the greatest living actors thanks to how she fuses her emotional register with physical acting. Her breathing, her eyes, her musculature, her gait, they’re all part of the performance here. She achieves something sublime as an incredibly complicated person navigating a bruised maternal archetype. As Virginia disrupts Mia and Arryan with mind games and insanity during their assessment, it’s a thrill to see the interplay between these actors (and Patel is wonderful as well, just with less of an inner life, perhaps like many men).
‘The Assessment’ Has a Cool Coda and a Cruel Minnie Driver
The film’s coda is a startling revelation that immediately expands The Assessment beyond the single location we spend roughly 90 minutes in. It’s a visceral, exhilarating ending that somehow creates closure for each character while also inviting interpretation of where they are, how they got there, and where they’re going. It also fleshes out the reality of The Assessment, and the tons of world-building at the very end force you to re-examine everything which came before. I immediately wanted to rewind; that, or fast-forward into the future where there’s some improbable sequel.
There is a wonderful dinner party sequence in the middle of the film which provides pivotal exposition and introduces a small group of characters at just the right moment, pacing-wise. Minnie Driver steals the scene here as a loud and cynical bully. She’s hilarious and tragic all at once, and prompts further questions about the film’s exploration of power, class, comfort, and apocalypse. The setting becomes a great character in and of itself, between the strange, Mondrian-inspired home, the eerie and endless landscape, and the roaring, rocky coast.
The Assessment is the rare sci-fi masterpiece that doesn’t need special effects, action, or franchise world-building to succeed. It passes the test without a doubt, and you’ll find yourself wondering whether you, and humanity as a whole, do too. The Assessment is in theaters March 21, 2025, from Magnolia Pictures.
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