The Assessment

Nobody in the world of 'The Assessment' gets to have a baby without the state's permission. It's the first feature from Fleur Fortuné, a French director who made her name in music videos for M83 and Travis Scott, and it's a science fiction thriller written by John Donnelly and by the duo Mrs & Mr Thomas, otherwise known as Nell Garfath Cox and Dave Thomas.

The climate has left much of the planet uninhabitable. Mia (Elizabeth Olsen), a botanist, and Aaryan (Himesh Patel), who designs virtual pets because the real ones were culled years ago, live in an isolated house by the sea and want a child. To get one, they have to let an official, Virginia (Alicia Vikander), move in for seven days and watch everything they do. If they fail, or give up, they can never apply again.

What starts as a round of interviews and exercises turns very strange once Virginia begins behaving like a child, with whims and demands that grow more absurd by the day. Living with her drags out what each of them has kept quiet, and before long the assessment is testing the marriage itself as much as their fitness to raise a child.

Vikander was four months pregnant during the shoot. Minnie Driver, Indira Varma, Charlotte Ritchie and Nicholas Pinnock round out the cast. The interiors were shot in Germany and the exteriors on Tenerife in August 2023, because Fortuné wanted somewhere that felt like another planet and found the island volcanic, dry and endlessly windy. Magnus Nordenhof Jønck shot it, and Jan Houllevigue's production design has more than a hint of Mondrian.

It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024, Amazon picked up the international rights, and after a US cinema release in March 2025 it arrived on Prime Video in the UK on 8 May. Reviews were mostly warm and especially kind to Vikander, though several critics had doubts about the final stretch. At the British Independent Film Awards it won best production design, and Vikander was nominated for best lead performance.

• Science fiction
• Drama
• Thriller