Set in a future world where no one ages, there are no animals and precious few plants, Fleur Fortuné’s dystopian sci-fi drama “The Assessment” follows isolated scientists Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) as they endure an arduous, week-long, and ultimately absurd government-mandated test, led by the wildly unpredictable assessor Virginia (Alicia Vikander), designed to discover if they are one of the few couples fit for parenthood. As the week progresses, Virginia pushes the couple to a breaking point, forcing them to examine their own faults as well as the harsh truth about the world they have made for themselves.
Fortuné began her career as an art director at the Paris-based H5 graphics studio before making a name for herself directing music videos. Her bold and innovative work in the medium includes videos for Skrillex, Pharrell Williams, and an expansive trilogy for M83’s album “Midnight City.” She also helmed the fourteen-minute dystopian video for Travis Scott’s “Birds in the Trap” and directed dreamy ad campaigns for brands like Nike and Chloé.
While struggling to conceive her first child with her husband, Fortuné was approached by producer Stephen Woolley with the script for “The Assessment,” written by Dave Thomas and Nell Garfath-Cox (credited as Mrs. & Mr. Thomas), as a possible project for her feature film debut. Having gone through her own absurd medical journey filled with many visits to the doctor’s office, with invasive tests and combative arguments, she related to Mia and Aaryan’s desire for a child, as well as the many hoops they have to go through to get one in this decidedly dystopian future. Fortuné brought on screenwriter John Donnelly to further develop the script over a five-year period, fleshing out the characters and adding a greater sense of humor and a deeper emotional connection for the audience.
For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus column, RogerEbert.com spoke to Fortuné over Zoom about the five-year process of developing her film, crafting a complex sci-fi world that audiences can still connect with emotionally, and making a film that pushes people to examine their actions in today’s world while also considering the implications they have on the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival and its themes have stuck with me for months. Once the script was on your radar, what was it about the world the screenwriters had created that really spoke to you?
I think it was more the idea, the plot, and the concepts that spoke to me. I was in the process of trying to have kids with my husband for a while, and so I had IVF and adoption meetings and all of that, so I could completely relate to the couple. After I came on board, during a very early stage when producer Stephen Woolley sent me the script, the film’s universe was very far from what it is now. So it was not necessarily the universe. It was more the idea and how we could develop the characters. We worked on it for five years. First, I developed the characters, then the story, and then I could create the universe I wanted, but it was far from what it is now. The initial script was with “Minority Report” style screens and many other sci-fi elements that audiences are used to seeing. I wanted to create something that would put the story more in the front line and would be less about the effects.
In those five years, how did you track the bleak world you were creating, with the drugs and the apocalyptic backstory that slowly comes to the fore in the dialogue.
It’s complicated with sci-fi because you need to explain how the world works, which you don’t have to do when doing a contemporary-like story. So we had to explain it, but we didn’t want it to be too heavy. Like the drug Cinoxin. We had to think about how to explain what it does. But sometimes, as a filmmaker, you explain too much, and the audience doesn’t like it because you make them think they are stupid. So, it was a very thin balance. At the same time, we didn’t want the movie to be too complex. We wanted the story to be about this couple and how they feel emotionally going through that process and less about what kind of state the world is in. There was a version of the script where Virginia called her superior. But we got rid of all those elements and turned it into a chamber piece about how this couple feels when facing someone like Virginia, a strict employee who makes them go through all these crazy tests.
At what point did you envision it taking place in this isolated, almost desert-like coastal location?
The script always included a house on a beach. And very early on, I knew I didn’t want it to look like a paradise beach or a paradise world. I wanted it to feel almost as if it could be on a different planet. When we started to scout in different places, Tenerife had this crazy energy because it’s volcanic and very dry. There’s a lot of wind, and there is a threat that is always there. That was very useful for the actors. Lizzie told me when she arrived how much it was feeding her when she was training for her swim scenes. When I went there with the production designer, we thought about the sand, and we started to talk about the fact that there are no trees anymore and no woods in this world. Mia is the only one working with plants. There are no plants anymore. There are no animals anymore. So then everything around them comes from the material of the earth, because they have nothing else. So, the house had to be made of concrete or glass. The story helps you create the world visually.
The house has a mid-century modern feel, which harkens back to the Space Age design of the 1960s, when the future was this big, open, amazing place. But here, you’re using that space-age design in a really bleak way. Was that something you were thinking about as you were decorating the inside of their home?
It’s very hard to create a future you haven’t seen because now it feels like it changes every three months. Every time I go to an airport there are robots serving you. It’s evolving so fast. So that’s why I wanted to get rid of the devices, and I also wanted to create a future that you haven’t seen before but that you could relate to emotionally. So that’s why, when I was discussing the house with the production designer, we started to talk here about the space age, and also in the ’70s, where Afrofuturism felt so modern and much more futuristic than today in terms of design. So we started to dig into that. When an audience can relate to something they have a history with, it makes them feel like the place, even if they haven’t seen it before, is in their blood, in their skin. They’re not trying to understand the place while they’re trying to process the story.
Specifically, Hamish Patel’s office is this empty space filled with dirt. It reminded me a lot of the stripped down staging of Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring.” Was that an inspiration?
At some point, the space was all white, but then I thought it was too close to “The Matrix.” I wanted to have a place that would be infinite, and then I wanted to have something tangible in there. I didn’t have the money to create something crazy, but sometimes I like that because it makes you more creative. So I thought there could be some kind of sand, because sand is the only thing they have on the island. Then, the sand becomes the new technology they are all made of. Sometimes, simplicity is a good tool.
Alicia Vikander’s performance is incredibly physical, as she oscillates between acting like a toddler and full grown adult. She dances, she gets on people’s laps. There’s a lot going on with that performance. Obviously, children often have no boundaries, and her character has no boundaries. I think her performance made the audience I watched the film with really uncomfortable a few times, which I love. How did you work with her on that performance?
Alicia attended a dance academy school in Sweden until she was 18 or 19. That was her first training, dance. And she does a lot of sports, so she has a very good knowledge of her body and her movements, and she has a lot of control over her body. It’s something that she loves to do. So she was really eager to go into the physicality of the role. And it was quite easy for her to explore those boundaries. When we talked about the party scene, I knew she was going to be great. I also referenced some art photographers, like this one with a woman who has the same physicality of a kid, but with the woman in a costume that makes it so weird and unsettling. We were totally aligned on how weird kids can be. I looked at my daughter’s behavior, who is three now, and I thought, “What if I would do that?” They are so free because they don’t have rules of society.
What exactly were you looking for in actors to bring the main couple to the screen, and how did you land on Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel?
I had Lizzie in mind almost from the beginning. I have been a fan since I saw her in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” I needed her character to be the most wild and human and artful. And she has such a connection with those aspects in a very natural way, a very elegant way. She never pushes too far with the emotion. It’s always in a very precise way. I think she managed to create a connection with the audience, so they feel that they are in the place of this couple. I needed someone who could make that connection, because Virginia, Alicia’s character, is so crazy and so weird that it can take you out of the story a little bit. So I needed whoever played Mia to be on the opposite side of that.
With Aaryan, Himesh Patel’s character, it was not easy to find the right actor. Because I didn’t want him to be a bad guy. He’s a genius, so I wanted him to be a geek, but sometimes he’s funny and brings a lot of humor in the way that he has that censoring voice, which is very natural to him. Because he is very smart, you totally believe that he could be a genius who is not able to behave and live in a normal world, so he lives in one that gives him protection. I think Aaryan is often uncomfortable, and I knew that Himesh could bring that out in the character.
Did you do any sort of chemistry tests with the trio?
We did a couple with Alicia and Lizzie because they wanted to meet. It was mainly about the final scene that they have together in Virginia’s apartment. In the end, the connection was so natural. We filmed it at the end of the shoot, so it came naturally. When we arrived in Tenerife, we had a week before before we started to shoot. So we did some readings with Lizzie and Himesh. We had a lot of production problems, as is usual, that I had to deal with, so they would meet together and learn each other like they had been a couple who had been together for five or ten years.
As you said, the film is mostly this chamber piece between these three characters, but then you have this really dynamite dinner scene with all of these button pushing characters. In particular, I loved Minnie Driver’s performance. She has this one speech that is so brutally honest, and if I’m being personal, really reflected a lot of my own feelings about where we are today in terms of uses of resources and the world dying and bringing kids into it. It brought a lot of conflicting feelings up in me, as I think it did for a lot of audience members.
We rewrote that scene like so many times because that’s a very important scene. It’s a scene with a lot of information that is important to the story world, but we never want it to be on the nose. It needs to be funny, entertaining, and end in a crazy way. Minnie was great. What I love about her character is that she’s the bitch that comes to destroy the dinner party. But what is great is that, as you said, what she says is completely true, and she’s completely honest when everyone else is being proper and nice, but are actually hypocrites. I think that creates, with the audience, a very awkward feeling because it’s hard when the meanest person at the dinner party is actually the most truthful. She forces them to face the reality of their choices. So I think it’s great in that moment for the audience to have to face our own choices, also today.
Given the themes of the film, like what it takes to commit to parenthood and bring a child into a broken world, I wondered whether you have any sort of hope for our actual future?
Nowadays I feel like it’s very hard, because every day we wake up and there’s a new war and freedom is being taken from so many populations. It’s a very hard time. I try to stay hopeful, because I have a three-year-old, and I want her to have a beautiful life. But I have to say that, yeah, it’s very hard. That’s why I think that we really need movies with deeper meaning. Per that discussion about Minnie Driver’s character, I feel like people don’t want to look at what’s happening. They want movies and stories where everything is clean, and they don’t really want to talk about things because they don’t want to have bad feelings. But I think it’s actually very important to stay connected to our own humanity, to keep digging and thinking and facing things.
I think I agree. I think a lot of people are afraid to face uncomfortable truths. And I love that your film did that. Is there anything you hope people will take away with them after they’ve seen the film?
The film played many festivals and it made me very happy when audience members would say, “Oh, my God, I need several days to process all that and really think about it.” That, for me, is the biggest reward; That the film provokes people to think about what we are doing today and the implications for our future.
Are there any women who make films who have inspired you as a filmmaker?
Jane Campion. She was so feminist already at the time she first started making films. She was so ahead of everyone. She had the female gaze that everyone is talking about right now.
I saw “The Piano” recently on the big screen, and I felt feral for days afterwards because there’s just so much. It’s such a raw film.
When you think about “The Piano,” it’s so powerful emotionally, the performances are extraordinary, and all the characters, even the male characters, are so complex. It has that connection to real emotions. Sometimes I feel like I am watching movies that are supposed to be feminist, but that don’t have that connection. They are just portraying all the topics, checking all the boxes, but you don’t feel anything and you don’t understand what it means in your heart. I think she really brought that to her films, and she’s always bringing that to them. Even if I don’t make the same kinds of movies, she’s a big inspiration.
The Assessment comes to theaters March 21.
