When this came out, I read the five-star, hyperbolic reviews with interest and hoped to see this in the cinemas, but - like most foreign films - it came and went too swiftly. So, it was with great anticipation that I caught up with this just the other night on DVD.
My lord, I'm glad I didn't pay out cinema prices for this.
Flat, dull, dramatically inert and lacking any cinematic language, this piece does exactly what it says on the tin: no more, no less. In short - in case you didn't know - a worker in a factory has a weekend to sway a vote taking place on the Monday that will give her co-workers a bonus but deprive her of her job. Her task, over "Two Days, One Night" (although technically it's two nights) is to convince her fellow workers to forego their bonuses and let her keep her job. A big ask, ripe with dramatic potential.
Or so you'd think.
Instead, we watch as the character plods from place to place, rings doorbells, recites the same plot précis over and over again, receives one of two answers or some mealy-mouthed in-between, then plods to the next place. If they're not in and she's directed to somewhere they might be, you get to see her walk there, too. It feels, almost as if it's shot in real time. It's irritatingly repetitive and flat. The protagonist has suffered a mental breakdown of some unspecified sort, and is popping Xanax along the way to keep her going, which also results in the actress, Marion Cotillard, approaching the role looking slightly stunned, stressed and unhappy, which adds further to the lack of drama. Despite the fact that she's fighting for her life (or so you're led to believe - the ending belies this) she doesn't seem to really care, and at times appears to be doing the rounds only because her husband and two of her work colleagues are pushing her to do so.
And so it goes. Plod, plod, plod. Recap, answer, recap, answer. It's dreary, dull and drained of any vestige of drama in an effort for some sort of social "realism", as if it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It is anti-film, with no trace of imagination, no spark of inspiration and an ending that undermines all that's gone before. Even this might - just MIGHT - have worked with a bit of focus, a bit of cinematic intelligence, but it passes off as the rest of the film has, in monotone.
All in all, this is a deeply enervating experience and a waste of a potentially interesting story.
My lord, I'm glad I didn't pay out cinema prices for this.
Flat, dull, dramatically inert and lacking any cinematic language, this piece does exactly what it says on the tin: no more, no less. In short - in case you didn't know - a worker in a factory has a weekend to sway a vote taking place on the Monday that will give her co-workers a bonus but deprive her of her job. Her task, over "Two Days, One Night" (although technically it's two nights) is to convince her fellow workers to forego their bonuses and let her keep her job. A big ask, ripe with dramatic potential.
Or so you'd think.
Instead, we watch as the character plods from place to place, rings doorbells, recites the same plot précis over and over again, receives one of two answers or some mealy-mouthed in-between, then plods to the next place. If they're not in and she's directed to somewhere they might be, you get to see her walk there, too. It feels, almost as if it's shot in real time. It's irritatingly repetitive and flat. The protagonist has suffered a mental breakdown of some unspecified sort, and is popping Xanax along the way to keep her going, which also results in the actress, Marion Cotillard, approaching the role looking slightly stunned, stressed and unhappy, which adds further to the lack of drama. Despite the fact that she's fighting for her life (or so you're led to believe - the ending belies this) she doesn't seem to really care, and at times appears to be doing the rounds only because her husband and two of her work colleagues are pushing her to do so.
And so it goes. Plod, plod, plod. Recap, answer, recap, answer. It's dreary, dull and drained of any vestige of drama in an effort for some sort of social "realism", as if it's a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It is anti-film, with no trace of imagination, no spark of inspiration and an ending that undermines all that's gone before. Even this might - just MIGHT - have worked with a bit of focus, a bit of cinematic intelligence, but it passes off as the rest of the film has, in monotone.
All in all, this is a deeply enervating experience and a waste of a potentially interesting story.