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The Assessment Movie Review

The Assessment is a 2025 science fiction film directed by Fleur Fortune and starring Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander and Himesh Patel. It’s a pretty strong flick.

In a not-so-distant future where parenthood is strictly controlled, a couple’s mysterious seven-day assessment for the right to have a child unravels into a nightmare, forcing them to question the very foundations of society. I loved the concepts and ideas introduced in this movie. I found them to be rather unique for the genre and actually very well explored. It’s a great example of a science fiction story not requiring extensive effects to be effective.

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You see, in this future the world is divided into two – one where there is poverty, war and uncertainty and the other where everything is sterile and peaceful, but where you cannot have children. Children are forbidden due to overpopulation issues, which stem from the society having this drug that can prolong people’s lives.

This was a very interesting idea that led to the examination of what really constitutes a content life. Would you live in this chaotic and dangerous world that is free or would you live in this safe and technologically advanced world where you really are not free. This is the question posed here for the audiences and it’s a very clever one.

My only issue with The Assessment is that I did not care for its thriller/horror elements. Alicia Vikander is excellent in her role of the assessor, but I found those scenes where she tortured the couple needlessly excessive and odd just for the sake of being so. The part where she slept with the man was just ridiculous and it remained unexplained why it happened at all.

Again, Vikander was great here and she was humanized eventually in that touching third act, but beforehand she was way too robotic and villainous. Himesh Patel is fine in the role of the husband, but clearly this movie favored the women over the man and he felt underdeveloped as a result. Elizabeth Olsen fared the best. She was terrific as the interesting and complex Mia and this was a further proof of what an underrated performer Olsen really is.

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The movie was also surprisingly well directed by the newcomer Fleur Fortune. I found her direction very confident. The film is also superbly shot, well scored and it featured fantastic production design – that house was positively futuristic and we got to see all of it in vivid detail. It is slower in pace, but consistently engaging due to excellent dialogue and intriguing themes. I just wished that it was more dramatic and less thriller-focused as those elements worked less than the others.