Laure Calamy, Anne Suarez, Geneviève Mnich, Cyril Gueï
French actress Laure Calamy – familiar to audiences from Netflix’s Call My Agent and 2021’s My Donkey, My Lover & I – gives an exceptional performance in Éric Gravel’s (Crash Test Aglaé) breathless thriller.
A frazzled mother of two, Julie (Calamy) *just* gets by on her job as senior maid at a posh Paris hotel and sporadic alimony payments from her ex. Up at sunrise to prep her kids for school before a long commute, her life is a constant, precarious balancing act in which not one moment can be wasted. So when an interview for a better job – one that might just haul her out of a cycle of debt – coincides with a paralysing transport strike, it’s a nightmare of epic proportions that pushes her into a frenetic race against time.
Building all the qualities of a pulse-pounding thriller out of the jangling stresses of the daily hustle, Full Time boasts a really terrific turn from Calamy, whose openness as a performer invests you deeply in her plight, enhanced by a tense, rhythmic score. Recalling other arthouse films about women under duress like Run Lola Run, Victoria and the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night, it’s a lean and satisfying commentary on (and critique of) modern working life.
