"Full Time": A taut workplace thriller from French director Eric Gravel

'Tis the season for watching movies, and over the Thanksgiving break I caught the French independent film "Full Time" by writer/director Eric Gravel starring Laure Calamy, which is available to stream on Prime. I don't think I've ever seen a film that manages to be both a thriller, complete with fast-paced, heart-racing scenes, and a simple yet effective story about a single mom trying to make it work, but this film adeptly does both. The main character, Julie, lives on the outskirts of Paris where it's cheaper and more family-friendly and has to commute into the city to work at her job as head maid at a 5-star hotel, where she supervises and trains other maids, inspects bedsheets to make sure they're perfect, and even cleans shit off bathroom walls with a power washer. She has a master's degree in business but was laid off four years ago and took lower-level work to make ends meet. Her job is high pressure (hmmm, I didn't intend that pun, but I think it somehow works) and demanding, yet even as she's interviewing for another job that's ain her field, the Paris metro workers strike and she can't get to work. When the trains stop running, she resorts to creative, dire measures, from bumming a ride with a neighbor she barely knows to hitchhiking to renting a cargo van for a few days, all while trying to keep her kids safe with an increasingly frazzled older neighbor who babysits them. There are so many small, great moments in this film that showcase the main character's resilience and creativity in the face of an almost impossibly crushing situation. Calamy's acting as she flirts with men to try to score rides, does whatever she can for her kids, and somehow holds it all together with a smile, is powerful. Her husband is away and hasn't paid alimony, which makes her situation dire, with the bank calling her to warn her that her mortgage is late and she needs to meet with them. Meanwhile, unable to get to work on time, slipping out to interview for another, better position, her job as head maid is also on the line. The tense soundtrack and sounds of ambulances and other city noises throughout the film add to the sense of emergency, both in terms of the work-life balance that Parisians have being threatened by capitalism run amok as well as the fraught situation of a single mom having to balance a tough job and the brunt of raising her children. A powerful, effective film. 

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