ElMaruecan82
"Two Days, One Night" takes place in a small Belgian town, but take it from someone who's been living in the North of France, the grass isn't greener out there and the sky is pretty gray too. This is a part of Europe that used to be the industrial heart and that is now plagued by unemployment and professional precariousness. Everyone tries to keep his job, work extra hours or under the table to make ends meet.It is a real Darwinian system where one's ability to survive is guided by the will to work in the toughest conditions and to surrender to any liberal diktat, if it means being able to provide a shelter and a modest living for a family. It's not the happiest place or mindset of the world, but I know it enough to tell you that a vast majority earn money in non-declared activities or go as far as having large families for child benefits. As always, private decisions depend entirely on economical matters, and if money can't buy love or happiness, itit surely one tangible factor.It is important to contextualize the film geographically because we've got to realize that a bonus of 1000 euros isn't something to take lightly. People live with one salary sometimes and the minimum wage isn't far from that amount of money, it means a lot when you live in poverty. Secondly, we've got to perceive Sandra, the protagonist and heroine-to-be of quite a harrowing journey as a person at the bottom of that Darwinian scale. She's a worker in a solar-panel factory, in a town with one of the highest unemployment rates, and she's just recovered from a depression, which makes her slightly more vulnerable than her co-workers... if not already seen as a liability. The film puts us immediately in Sandra's situations, she learns from a friend that a vote has been cast in the factory and in order to compensate for some financial losses, the workers agreed to have Sandra fired and earn a bonus of 1000 euros. Sandra's friend manages to convince their boss to cast the vote again on Monday, and if a majority throw away the prime, Sandra stays. Sandra has basically one weekend, two days, one night literally, to convince her co-workers to vote for her, which means renouncing to a large sum of money so she could keep her job. We don't have time to discuss the process, there's urgency and then one of the most gripping journey to the ends of the economical chain takes off.The plot looks almost like a reality TV show with a frail woman being literally sacrificed at the altar of liberalism, with the bosses washing their hands of it. But the Dardennes brothers stay in "harmony" with the bleakness of the situation and don't try to make a crusader or some Messianic heroine out of Sandra, Sandra is at the edge of a nervous breakdown, many moments she's about to crack up, and in her first encounters, she's literally begging for a vote in her favor. She never sounds or feels like a heroine because, with maybe a few exceptions, none of the co-workers is portrayed as a villain or someone motivated by greed or selfishness. It's less the money they jeopardize than the prospects, children, house, plans and so on.The movie reminded me of that wonderful quote from Jean Renoir's masterpiece "The Rules of the Game" (quite a fitting title), when Renoir's character Octave says: "The real hell of life is everyone has his reasons", and they do have reasons and good reasons. Some react in an aggressive way but generally speaking, violence has an interesting counter-effect in the film, some break down and realize that they've been acting wrongly, other asks questions like "who voted for you so far?" "who's ready to give up the prime?", and it's very telling about the gregarious instinct, even in order to make a decent or good action, they have to know where the others stand for, exactly like in "12 Angry Men" when the jurors only grasp the gravity of the situation when they start thinking as individuals, outside the group's zone of comfort.And the film does work like "12 Angry Men" with the evolution of Sandra. In the beginning, she always revealed who voted for her but after a few encounters, she explains that the vote is secret. She gained more confidence and cared for the rules and was less begging for her future than asking people to reconsider the validity of their choices. Gradually, we see Sandra's overpowering her own insecurity, going through different stages, grief, anger, desperation, resignation, but with encouragements from her husband (FabrizioRognone) her faith in human nature increases and allows her to go further than she ever thought she could go. Marion Cotillard gives a magnificent, rightfully Oscar-nominated, performance like a French "Norma Rae".This is a film directed in all simplicity, with long takes for the the different encounters, not for artistic license but to capture the urgency and intensity of the moment, and the suspense lying on the "final answer". And each encounter provides one layer of complexity in a rather complex subject, and leading up to a splendid finale. As the plot advanced (it's one hour and half but it felt like a sprint) I was wondering what could be the best ending? Getting the job? The fanfare triumph? The downer ending? The wonderful script finds the perfect conclusion, sad, happy, uplifting and insightful."Two Days, One Night" says more than any economical essay about the consequences of crisis and unemployment, through realistic portraits of lives being weakened and threatened by the economical game, and a film that makes you think of "12 Angry Men", "Norma Rae" or "The Rules of the Game" could never fail.
jtncsmistad
Before seeing the French domestic drama "two days, one night" I was only cursorily familiar with Marion Cotillard's work. I am now richly informed.Likewise, little did I know that a movie about a blue collar wife and mother battling to keep her job as a rank and file factory floor worker could be enrapturing entertainment. Guess what? It can.Cotillard is completely credible in this Oscar-nominated performance as Sandra. She strikes nary a false note in a riveting turn as a woman struggling with severe depression as she strives to convince fellow employees to ditch their coveted bonuses so that she may continue to earn a living for her family and not be forced to take government handouts "on the dole". The fact that Cotillard, though a true natural beauty, went without any apparent make up for the bulk of the film only served to enhance the stark urgency and utter desperation inherent in her enormously daunting mission.And there is another aspect of "two days, one night" that especially appealed to me personally. As a big rock music fan, I found it delightful that the Belgian Director tandem of brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne chose to include in their production a pair of scenes which cleverly communicate the inherent spirit and emotion of the genre in very different manners. The pair of classic songs featured from legendary pop and rock icons Petula Clark and Van Morrison instill a sense both of pathos and frivolity into the complex fabric of this chronicle examining the fight for human dignity and destiny.Never one to surrender the specifics as regards an ending, I will simply impart that "two days, one night" arrived at a conclusion that is at once as reasonably realistic as it is distinctly hopeful.Or to put it another way......Success and satisfaction do not always come to us in the forms in which they are pursued.
Mobithailand
This is a peach of a movie.If you like continental European films and have a penchant for a gritty, realistic genre, which brings the dramas of everyday life to the big screen in totally believable and original ways, then this is a film you shouldn't miss.This Belgium offering was directed by the multi-award winning (Cannes) brothers, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, and stars the beautiful French actress, Marion Cotillard, who had to learn to speak with a Belgian accent and 'dress down' to make her look more 'ordinary'. Cotillard will never look totally ordinary, but she does a wonderful job of making you believe that she is a struggling young Belgian mother who is recovering from depression and receives some devastating news from her employer.Her workmates had been asked to vote – either for her to be dismissed and still receive their annual bonuses, or to let her continue to work and, as a result, forfeit their bonuses. The film relates the young wife's efforts over a single weekend to try and persuade the staff to change their minds after her boss agrees to hold a new ballot on the Monday morning.It doesn't sound like much, but trust me, it is riveting.I don't know why, but one of the user reviewers has compared this film to Lost in Translation, which I personally think was a boring load of nonsense. The truth is that this film is nothing like 'Lost in Translation'. This is a film full of heart-wrenching emotion, which explores the good, the bad, the selfishness and the generosity of the human spirit as the young mother embarks on a series of one- to-one meetings – sometimes confrontations – with her fellow employees, over a long weekend.Collitard is just superb in the role and is well deserving of the film's single Oscar Nomination for Best Actress. All the supporting actors, representing today's diverse Belgian society, also act their hearts out as working class folk, trying to make ends meet during the recession and desperate to keep hold of their bonuses for one reason or another.It is a truly 21st-century moral dilemma.Needless to say, both the professional and user movie critics are pretty much united in their views that this is a very fine film. Collitard was nominated for Best Actress Oscar for her wonderful portrayal in this film; but of course, as usual, it went to one of the Hollywood 'in' set.
