‘The Assessment’ Review: Alicia Vikander Gives Parental Guidance in Mother Off with Elizabeth Olsen | TIFF

Parenthood can be hard, time consuming and daunting – but it can also be selfish. Beyond the desire to have a child that carries your name, and beyond the heartwarming moments that deepen the sense of family, we may need to question what kind of world we are bringing our children into and, more importantly, are we capable of raising a happy child in a supportive, healthy environment? Perhaps what we want and need – having a child and building a family – unfortunately comes first and our children’s wellbeing risks being an afterthought.

This is precisely what Fleur Fortuné’s thought-provoking and superbly made The Assessment wants us to ponder on. Set in a future where climate change has destroyed most of the world and resources have become extremely scarce, humanity is forced to ask those hard questions after decades of raising children by default. But governments do not trust them to handle those hard truths, which is why a mandatory assessment has been put in place: any couple wishing to have a child would have to undergo a series of assessments over the course of seven days. A government representative would visit them at their household, spend the week with them and everyday would feature a different type of assessment. At the end of the assessment period, a decision would be made with no possibility of appeal. 

A young couple, Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel), are dreaming of having a child and building a family. They reside in the ‘new world,’ a sanctuary-like environment where there is clean water, energy and greenery, which automatically makes them among the privileged one percent. Their parents, along with the majority of the population, were not as fortunate and ended up in the ‘old world’ in which pollution, high temperatures and a decaying ecosystem are making it almost impossible to survive. In an effort to protect what’s left of the Earth’s already diminishing resources, only residents of the new world are subject to the assessment, given that child birth would impact resource consumption. Members of the old world can give birth as they please, knowing that it’s highly unlikely that their offspring will ever survive.

A government rep, Virginia (Alicia Vikander) visits Mia and Aaryan to kick off the week-long assessment. The couple, already nervous, are rattled by Virginia’s mysterious demeanor, as she is very hard to read and seems quite unpredictable and antagonistic. As the assessments commence, the couple’s own relationship as well as their intelligence, stamina and capabilities are all put to the test. The assessments get weirder and harder, and the couple are on the verge of collapse. Still, they refuse to halt the assessment – a condition that the government grants to parents – and decide to get on with its entirety in hopes of passing and finally being approved as capable parents.

Olsen and Patel bring authenticity and vulnerability to their characters, and we can’t help but root for them as they experience the toughest of challenges – but this is Alicia Vikander’s film. She delivers one of her best and most exciting performances in years and brilliantly captures her character’s deranged and mercurial nature. She’s clearly having fun but deeply understands what the story is trying to convey. The film rests completely on her shoulders and without her unhinged portrayal, it might have ended far less impactful. It’s a film about the high stakes and the tough questions we must force ourselves to answer, and that requires a threatening assessor to press the characters’ buttons, throwing them to the edge of insanity. Anything less and the film would have been toothless, meandering and conventional. In Alicia’s hands, and thanks to an intelligent and unpredictable screenplay by Mrs. & Mr. Thomas and John Donnelly, it becomes such a joy to watch the pressures mounting over the determined couple as they start questioning their decisions, relationship dynamics and readiness to build a family on such shaky grounds. 

The film makes a bit of an unnecessary detour in its final third, as Virginia starts to explain some of the rationale behind her final decision and the film loses a bit of its power – but it remains nevertheless an engrossing, important piece of work that is both thoughtful and accessible to a wider audience. 

Grade: B

This review is from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival where The Assessment had its world premiere. Amazon Prime Video is set to release the film in 2025.