Julia Garner has many more credits on her resume than just Ozark. In 2019, the two-time Emmy winner gave a powerful performance in The Assistant, an incredible film inspired by the #MeToo era. The movie was released theatrically in January 2020 and is now available to stream on Hulu.
In The Assistant, Garner stars as Jane, a junior assistant at a film production company in New York City. The film takes place over a single day, beginning before dawn when Jane arrives at the office to do menial tasks. Her job is incredibly stressful to the point that she forgets about her own family, exemplified by her forgetting to call her father on his birthday.
Videos by PopCulture.com
As the day goes on, Jane realizes that her boss, who is never depicted onscreen, is having sex with young women in the office she sits right in front of. Male executives appear to know about this by making jokes about it, while Jane’s female co-workers focus on their own work. The day is interrupted when Sienna (Kristine Froseth) arrives from Idaho and is suddenly offered an important job she has no experience in. Although Jane speaks with human resources about Sienna, Jane soon learns that the system is set up to protect her boss, not the women he hurts. The lead cast also includes Succession star Matthew Macfayden as the head of human resources and Mackenzie Leigh as an aspiring actress. Patrick Wilson also has a cameo as an actor.
The Assistant was written and directed by Kitty Green, who also co-edited and co-produced the movie. This was Green’s first dramatic feature. She previously directed the award-winning 2013 documentary Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, which focused on a feminist group in Ukraine. In 2017, Green directed Casting JonBenet, a Netflix documentary on the death of JonBenet Ramsey and its impact. Her screenplay for The Assistant earned her a nomination for Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Garner is best known for playing Ruth Langmore on Netflix’s Ozark. The role earned her the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama in both 2019 and 2020. The first part of Ozark‘s final season was released on Jan. 21.
Garner’s next project will also be released on Netflix. She stars in Inventing Anna, Shonda Rhimes’ new series about Anna Delvey, who was born in Russia and pretended to be a wealthy German heiress to defraud banks and the wealthy. The script is based on Jessica Pressler’s New York Magazine article on the case, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People.” The nine-episode limited series will be released on Netflix on Feb. 11.
