How IVF and Fertility Struggles Inspired Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander’s Offbeat Psychological Thriller ‘The Assessment’
variety.comRebecca Rubin Senior Film and Media Reporter In “The Assessment,” a psychological sci-fi thriller that premieres on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival, Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel play a couple that wants to procreate.
The only problem? They live in the not-so-distant future where the state controls who gets to have a child. So, they have to endure a shadowy and mysterious test to prove they are worthy.
Enter the assessor (played by Alicia Vikander), who comes to evaluate the husband and wife in their home. Over the course of seven increasingly intense days, she asks them invasive and uncomfortable questions before putting them through simulations of potential horrors that children can inflict on their parents.
The final product strikes an offbeat and sometimes dark tone that intentionally veers into absurdity as the duo is forced to question why they want to grow their family in the first place.
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