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While filming the dystopian indie drama “The Assessment,” stars Elizabeth Olsen and Alicia Vikander found nature to be a crucial touchpoint for understanding its strange, mesmerizing sci-fi world.
In theaters now, the debut feature by Fleur Fortuné is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape in which couples have to undergo a state-administered test to see if they can be allowed to become parents. Mia (Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) accept an assessor named Virginia (Vikander) into their home to watch them for seven days. They soon find that the assessment literally requires the couple to demonstrate their parenting skills, as Virginia acts like an actual child that needs to be bathed and fed.
As the assessment unfolds, viewers also learn about the conditions that led to this society in which the government controls reproduction. Mia and Aaryan’s life is a mix of ultramodern and familiar elements — their house is located by the ocean and equipped with smart voice commands and an “office” where Aaryan generates virtual animals. Mia tends to a nearby greenhouse of plants and swims in the water. Their society is partitioned off from the “old world,” an area of Earth destroyed by a climate crisis that nearly wiped out humanity years before.
That disaster hangs in the background and allows the film to pose subtle questions about parenting, ethics and climate issues. Olsen and Vikander spoke with Variety via Zoom about filming in Spain’s Canary Islands on Tenerife, how the natural environment shaped the production and figuring out the characters’ physicality.
What was it like working with Fleur?
VIKANDER: I think we had a really wonderful time. It’s really nice to catch up now and see each other again. We’ve been talking a lot about, both of us, that we were really inspired when we both came across her work and saw the music videos and almost to the point of short films that she had made before. She’s a director with a very strong sense of her visual language, which is really impressive. And I think, knowing that, after seeing her work, that she was going to take on this story, mixed with the kind of themes and elements of this very kind of intimate chamber piece, we were very excited to work with her. And yes, it’s her first feature film. But she knows exactly what film she wanted to make, right from the get-go, and I felt like she had a way of communicating her vision and her ideas in a very impressive way from the start.OLSEN: Yeah, she really is such a singular person. And just to quote her husband, he always says that there’s a “Fleur filter.” So you might read a book and think of something that’s in the book, but the way Fleur processes it is just in its own filter.
I know Fleur has said that her interest in the film has stemmed from her experience with IVF, and she’s compared it to the current state of reproductive rights. Were you also thinking about the film’s premise through those angles?
OLSEN: The way, as an actor, we connect to different stories are always very personal, and I think the thing that I found so freeing within this film is it doesn’t tell you a thesis statement of what to think, believe or feel. It allows space for you to reflect on your own innate rights. It allows you to reflect on the resources we use on this planet, allows you to reflect on why do I want to become a parent? Who gets these resources? Why do you deserve to use resources? And so I think there’s so many things that are elegantly offered for an audience to walk away thinking about without giving you a thesis statement. You get to have those thoughts and experiences all wrapped up in a game that ultimately these characters are playing with one another. So there’s this absurdist humor and drama as well to it.
What did you think of the actual sci-fi setting when you read the script? It’s so specific from other sci-fi films that are out there.
VIKANDER: I think we got a hint that it was going to be something quite different, and I like the kind of musky, organic, strong, earthy, big colors, and something that took us very far away from any kind of minimalism you’ve maybe seen in this genre before. I also love that the aspect of nature was a huge thing. We obviously shot this film in Tenerife for the exteriors, and that was a great place for us to start amongst the elements and the winds and the fires. And there was actual wildfires happening whilst we were there. And I think that was then brought into this living space. I thought it was wonderful to see the history from the world from before, that was within the house. It was like little memories of different things and materials that had existed before, and it felt like it was a very much like a lived-in space.
Speaking of that house, when you stepped onto the set, what was your reaction to the way that they transformed the description of this futuristic house into something tangible? Did it match what you thought it would look like?
OLSEN: I do think there’s a Fleur filter. I didn’t know what it would look like, and I found it to be so clear for us understanding the privilege of these two characters, and I do find it interesting that the characters of Aaryan and Mia are very privileged members of society, and it’s not because of some random capitalism, but it’s because of how useful they are to that world because of their work and their own scientific discoveries. Even though we’re in this future dystopia, there is something interesting about the idea that the people who are creating, who are the most useful, are the ones that have this privilege. I don’t think we really respect the people who are making the world a very safe and livable place, and so I was interested in that.
But you could see their privilege within the space because it’s massive. The thing that I was really excited to see most was Aaryan’s office, and my office, my greenhouse. For Aaryan’s office, I was so interested in how they were going to create this infinity space, and they used this black sand that was reflective of the volcanic island that we were on, and everything he built came from this sand that was there. Everything was so clearly thought out, from the bricks that would have been in that natural space to the trinkets that you would find washing up on a beach from a time in a world before. It was really a remarkable set for a film that had such a small budget.
Alicia, I want to ask you about playing Virginia. How did you pull off acting like a child? How much rehearsal was involved?
VIKANDER: We always rehearse on the day, but sometimes it is the joy for everyone, both when you’re giving and receiving in collaboration with other actors, it’s nice to have a certain element of surprise in the moment. It was nerve wracking, but I was also excited to finally get to the point of performing these sides to Virginia. It was a lot of preparation, absolutely, that I did in my own house. But I did have a 2-year-old at the time, and actually was like four, four-and-a-half months pregnant by the end. So I felt like I had a lot of inspiration.
I’ve been talking a lot about that the biggest revelation for me was that it was a lot of memories that came to me whilst performing these scenes, of behavior that I’ve had myself at a very, very young age, almost like forgotten memories. I think that I realized that, Oh, my God, there’s a feeling that these were things that would really frustrate me, or things that would make me happy or scared, and it was certain element of me feeling that certain things came very naturally. I didn’t want to make a caricature. I wanted to make something that was real and profound and something that would also, on a certain level, maybe make our characters actually connect.
What was the most difficult aspect of acting like a child?
VIKANDER: I think with age, you just stop using your physicality less. It’s incredible to see the kind of forces of nature children are. Keeping up with that kind of stamina, of feeling like: never stop. Always my brain was looking for something, doing something, thinking that you’re talking about something whilst I’m trying to do something else, while I’m already thinking what I’m doing next. Then why am I maybe bored? It was like a constant engine within me, and I think that was both really helpful when I found that, but physically, it was a bit more draining.
Elizabeth, how did swimming shape your approach to Mia and your understanding of that character?
OLSEN: She’s so in her body and connected to nature that needed to be kind of in every element of her person, from the clothes she wears to to like the way she maintains her hair — there’s just a wildness and naturalness that came with how she moves through space. Only when she’s really around the assessor she starts sitting differently or trying to be as polite as possible, because she kind of comes from this life where her mother was this free thinking, powerful, courageous woman who she has her own conflicting feelings about. I usually, with building characters, like to start with voice, whether it’s a vocal shift or an accent, and it didn’t make sense for her. So it became something that was much more about just being in her body in a way that I felt like I haven’t been in a film, actually.
In terms of the greenhouse, how was it being in that physical space, of having that contact with the plants? How did that also shape your character?
OLSEN: What was incredible is that everything was real. Everything — the irrigation system they built was real. The plants were real. Not one thing was a fake plant in there. It was really powerful. It was built in Tenerife, on location in this volcanic rock, and to see those delicate flowers, plants, nutrients being able to survive while there is a wildfire in Tenerife and this insane wind that was so, so oppressive, and that the fact that we were able to have that grow there, it really did feel precious to our set.
Elizabeth, how did you use Mia’s experience with her mother to explain things for the character’s situation and the way that she lives her life?
OLSEN: I think there’s a feeling of abandonment when you’re a child, and someone chooses to leave. I certainly had this experience with my grandmother, who I wasn’t very close with. But when I had a holiday with her, I just sat next to her for Christmas, and I truly had never spent much time with her. We just started chatting, and we never stopped talking. I just sat at this table and asked her questions about her childhood. And her childhood was absolutely impossible, and then she was a single parent, raising four kids right after World War II, and she worked her ass off in factory work, and when she had the chance as an adult woman to have another husband and travel the world, she did. And I was so moved by actually, for the first time in my life, learning her story, and every feeling I had where I thought, “Oh, my grandma’s never around” as a little girl was gone because she lived her life, and I found that to be courageous and powerful.
That’s how I feel about Mia with her mother. She feels initially abandoned because her mother chose her beliefs over raising her children. And I think you have a lot of anger and resentment, and there’s a point in your life, whether it’s through an experience or age or whatever life happens to you, that you forgive and you actually are able to admire someone’s courageous choices like that, to do the brave thing and live life and not feel like they have to do something just because society tells you to. We have one life and how do we choose to live it? And so I do feel like it was kind of the core of Mia’s decision that she makes ultimately in the film.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
