In a cinematic landscape saturated with bombastic CGI spectacles, The Assessment (2024) stands out as a stark, thought-provoking parable about humanity’s obsession with control. Directed by Fleur Fortune in her feature debut, this German-British co-production merges minimalist sci-fi aesthetics with raw emotional intensity, delivering a narrative that feels both eerily plausible and deeply unsettling. Starring Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander in career-defining roles, the film interrogates the moral cost of survival in a climate-ravaged world where even parenthood becomes a privilege policed by cold bureaucracy.

A World Divided: Utopia Built on Rot

Set in a near future where Earth’s ecosystems have collapsed, The Assessment paints a bifurcated society. The elite inhabit a sanitized, pastel-hued “New World” where oxygen is clean, aging is optional, and every aspect of life—including reproduction—is meticulously regulated. Meanwhile, the “Old World” lies in ruins, its inhabitants gasping through oxygen masks amid toxic air and societal decay. This visual dichotomy is central to the film’s critique: the New World’s candy-colored architecture (reminiscent of Pedro Almodóvar’s surreal interiors) masks a soul-crushing regime of genetic optimization and psychological surveillance.

The story follows Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Arian (Himesh Patel), a couple desperate to conceive. In this society, however, parenthood isn’t a right but a reward granted only after passing a seven-day evaluation conducted by Virginia (Alicia Vikander), a government-appointed assessor. What begins as a routine check—questions about parenting philosophy, genetic compatibility, and emotional stability—descends into a psychological battleground where the couple’s secrets, insecurities, and societal conditioning are weaponized against them.

Performances: A Masterclass in Subtext

Vikander’s Virginia is a revelation. Clad in prim beige suits and pearl earrings, she embodies the paradox of a system that polices humanity in the name of preserving it. Her calm, almost robotic demeanor cracks only once—a fleeting moment where she touches her flat stomach, hinting at her own loss of reproductive agency. This subtlety contrasts brilliantly with Olsen’s Mia, whose transition from a compliant applicant to a woman clawing at the edges of her suppressed maternal instincts is harrowing. A scene where Mia recounts a past miscarriage—her voice trembling, hands clutching an invisible child—is a gut punch, exposing the cruelty of reducing parenthood to a checklist.

Patel’s Arian, meanwhile, serves as the film’s quiet moral compass. His silence during Virginia’s interrogations speaks volumes about complicity; his eventual betrayal of Mia (revealing he once fathered a child in the Old World) underscores how patriarchy persists even in dystopia.

Themes: When Survival Demands Sacrificing Humanity

At its core, The Assessment is about power—who wields it, who suffers under it, and how systems dehumanize both. The seven-day evaluation mirrors the biblical creation myth, but here, humanity plays God through eugenics. Virginia’s questions—“Would you abort a disabled fetus?” “How much privacy would you sacrifice for your child?”—aren’t hypotheticals but traps designed to weed out imperfection. The film’s most chilling moments lie in its mundanity: a smart home AI monitoring the couple’s sex life, or a “tea break” that’s actually a surveillance window.

The screenplay, co-written by John Donnelly and Neil Gathas Cox, smartly avoids villainizing individuals. Virginia isn’t a mustache-twirling oppressor but a product of the system she enforces—a woman who traded her fertility for authority. Similarly, Mia and Arian’s lies aren’t malicious but survival tactics in a world that pathologizes vulnerability.

Visual Language: Beauty as a Facade

Fortune’s background in advertising shines in the film’s meticulous production design. The New World’s hyper-stylized environments—geometric furniture, holographic reports, walls that pulse like living organs—create a suffocating sense of artifice. Cinematographer Diego García (known for Neon Bull) uses stark lighting to turn Virginia’s assessment room into a clinical fishbowl, where every flicker of doubt is magnified.

Yet the film’s most striking contrast lies in its color palette. The Old World’s grays and browns evoke decay, while the New World’s pinks and blues feel like a screensaver masking existential rot. Even the score—a mix of dissonant strings and glitchy electronica—mirrors the tension between organic emotion and synthetic control.

Flaws: Ambition Outpacing Execution

For all its strengths, The Assessment stumbles in its final act. A subplot involving an underground resistance feels undercooked, its introduction rushed and lacking the narrative heft to justify its symbolic role. Similarly, flashbacks to Virginia’s past—while meant to humanize her—disrupt the claustrophobic tension built earlier. The ending, which sees Mia and Arian embracing a simulated child in a virtual womb, is visually stunning but thematically muddled. Is it a critique of escapism, or a bleak acceptance of humanity’s inability to change? The film leaves this ambiguity unresolved, which may frustrate viewers craving catharsis.

Cultural Resonance: A Mirror to Our Present

Though set in the future, The Assessment resonates with contemporary anxieties. The climate crisis, rising authoritarianism, and debates over reproductive rights (from abortion bans to IVF regulations) all echo in its narrative. When Virginia declares, “B-class citizens don’t deserve futures,” it’s impossible not to think of real-world policies that marginalize the poor, disabled, or “genetically undesirable”.

The film also interrogates the commodification of parenthood. In an era where “parenting influencers” monetize family life and genetic testing kits promise “perfect babies,” The Assessment asks: How far will we go to engineer ideal offspring? And who gets to define “ideal”?

Final Verdict: Essential Viewing with Caveats

The Assessment isn’t a perfect film, but its imperfections make it all the more compelling. By refusing easy answers, it forces viewers to sit with discomfort—to question their own complacency in systems that prioritize efficiency over empathy. Vikander and Olsen deliver performances that will linger long after the credits roll, and Fortune establishes herself as a director unafraid to marry style with substance.

For fans of Black Mirror or The Handmaid’s Tale, this is a must-watch—a dystopia that feels less like fiction and more like a warning. As climate disasters escalate and AI reshapes societal norms, The Assessment challenges us to confront a terrifying question: In our quest to survive, will we sacrifice what makes us human?