For a species that has often expressed our fear of the end of the world, we do tend to have a fondness for dystopian stories. There’s something about works of speculative fiction that take place in the future in which we are presented with alternative realities that often capture our attention, even when we may not necessarily expect it. Some of the greatest works of literature in every conceivable medium contain such elements, and its not difficult to see why they can be so appealing to both writers and filmmakers, since they are often set within recognisable worlds (often the near-future, or at least one that bears some resemblance to our own), but where there is a significant amount of artistic freedom afforded to the creator, who is then able to orchestrate any daring and provocative scenarios, whether to convey a particular message or purely for the sake of challenging conventions. A recent example of an original concept that follows this approach is The Assessment, in which Fleur Fortuné makes her directorial debut, telling the story of Mia and Aaryan, a childless couple living in the “New World”, a protected region in which humanity has been able to start over since destroying our previous home. They are eager to have a child of their own, but society regulates all pregnancies in an effort to avoid overpopulation – and in order to determine whether they are fit to be parents, the couple are introduced to Virginia, a mysterious assessor who will live with them for a week, observing their domestic life and deciding whether they should be approved for parenthood. What starts as a seemingly simple (if not outright peculiar) visit turns into a harrowing game of cat-and-mouse as all parties fight to assert dominance, often resorting to extreme measures. A fascinating film in concept that does unfortunately falter in certain areas, The Assessment is nonetheless quite an intriguing work, albeit one that we do find retreads several familiar concepts in a way that does feel slightly disappointing given its potential.

At a glance, The Assessment does clearly seem to be crafted in an effort to emulate some of the great works of dystopian science fiction from the past – a society in which the freedoms we take for granted are highly regulated has clear connections to The Handmaid’s Tale, the constant surveillance to the point where every movement is tracked is a reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the concept of the government playing too much of a role in guiding our lives is related to Fahrenheit 451 – and these are only a small sampling of the works that preceded this film, which proves to be heavily inspired by a strong canon of works that observe the human condition in a recognisable but heightened set of circumstances. The core of what the director and her collaborators tasked with bringing this concept to life both narratively and visually, is to explore the process of becoming a parent, something that is usually considered one of the clearest and most sincere forms of freedom, through looking at an alternative scenario in which it has become a privilege afforded to only a select few who are deemed worthy of having children. The feeling that this is steeped heavily in contemporary points of conversation are not accidental, since we find that The Assessment is a very thinly-veiled deconstruction on conservative values and the tendency for the government (in many countries, not merely the one in which this film was made and set) feel like they must regulate personal freedoms, using the excuse of old-fashioned values as justification to assert very strange and often inappropriate policies that should not be in place from the start. None of this is accidental, and every choice made by Fortuné in telling this story seems like it is responding to many contemporary themes, providing a cautionary tale of what can occur should we allow strict, conservative values to continue marching on, particularly when it tends to impede on the sanctity of our domestic lives. A government that takes up residence in one’s home is often the one we should fear the most, as outlined by this film.

There are many enigmatic qualities that abound throughout The Assessment, which is carefully pieced together to be a showcase for its actors, all of whom are absolutely sensational, even if the film that surrounds them isn’t particularly worthy of their efforts. The central couple are portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel, both of whom are very strong actors who have delivered a number of wonderful performances over the years and shown their incredible versatility, even in some less-compelling works. They are a good match, as they feel like a natural couple – they are both playing very neurotic characters, but in a way that complements one another rather than stealing attention, which is the key quality needed to make this film so effective. They do well in finding the nuances in relatively underwritten characters who are crafted initially just to be representatives of the future middle-class, people who consider themselves intellectuals but are just cogs in a bigger and more sinister socio-cultural machine. However, the highlight of the film doesn’t come from them, but rather on behalf of Alicia Vikander, who makes a triumphant return to the kind of offbeat, challenging roles she played earlier in her career before being pigeon-holed into dull period films not at all worth her talents. She is always at her best when she is allowed to be unhinged, and her entire performance in The Assessment is one bizarre choice after the other, which only makes it a richer and more effective deconstruction of government interference and how they can impede on the fundamental freedoms of ordinary people, governing how they choose to live their lives. It’s a wonderful performance that deserved a better film – and this isn’t even saying anything about the range of supporting players, such as Minnie Driver and Nicholas Pinnock (both of whom are exceptional actors), who deliver stellar performances but are outrageously wasted on a film that simply did not know how to make use of its cast to their full abilities, one of its many shortcomings.

While the performances are quite good and tend to have some degree of complexity behind them, The Assessment does tend to fall apart after a while, particularly once the novelty has worn off and we see that there isn’t actually all that much going on beneath the surface. The filmmakers were so concerned with creating a film that challenges the boundaries of the medium, they actually inadvertently created something that doesn’t hit any of its intended targets after some time. Part of this is the limited scope – the idea is excellent, but it doesn’t do enough with it to justify some of its creative decisions. The first act is quite strong, where the worldbuilding and introduction to these characters does yield fascinating results, but it’s in the other areas which we find the film faltering, particularly once we reach the midway point and it becomes clear that it was rapidly losing momentum. There’s a dinner scene in the middle of the film that acts as the turning point for the narrative – but rather than heightening the tension and allowing the story to move onto its next stage, it deflates and becomes unwieldy, losing any sense of intrigue and making it very clear that this was a film built on a good premise, rather than being well-constructed throughout. The film simply does not know what it wants to be – it aims to be a biting satire, but turns out to be quite humourless (regardless of Vikander’s best efforts), and never has the wit or intelligence that it genuinely believes it possesses. It becomes quite dull, especially in how several scenes exist solely to pad an already overlong film (at nearly two hours, several parts of the film could have been trimmed or outright excised, since they serve no real purpose), providing insights into something that didn’t need to come across as this dour and bland. For a film with such an intriguing premise, The Assessment is oddly quite stale, and its unwillingness to experiment and decision to be far more serious and stoic than it needed to be is the ultimate root of its downfall.

While its ideas are ambitious and it’s certainly competently made, The Assessment is not the daring and provocative work that we may expect based on the premise. It comes across as being more misguided than it is brilliant, which is quite peculiar for a genre in which we can at least luxuriate in the audacity, even if the narrative itself is quite limited. There is something amiss about this film, almost as if it ran out of creative momentum halfway through – the build-up was quite good, but everything after its climactic centrepiece scene is quite dull and interesting, and isn’t helped by the refusal to include genuine, realistic stakes. Instead, the film is a rather bland and uninspiring attempt at dystopian fiction that never reaches where it intends to go, which is an enormous problem when it comes to holding our attention. The performances are solid, but needed a better script and a far more meaningful approach to the direction to be even vaguely effective, a clear case where even good work from the actors cannot reasonably elevate the often deeply unnerving and frustrating directorial decisions that are quite simply not effective enough to justify its bewildering manner of constructing this narrative. Formally quite bold but narratively lacklustre, The Assessment has good components, but ultimately falls victim to the same unnecessarily dense qualities that sometimes afflict works in which the ambition outweighs practicality, which is exactly the issue we find throughout this film.