Alliance Française French Film Festival 2022 Film Review: Full Time
Images courtesy of Palace Films.
Eric Gavel’s heart-poundingly tense film Full Time is an unfortunately all too accurate sign of the times, and the ubiquity of the immutable day to day struggles one must face when they are not born wealthy. The film follows Julie Roy, played expertly by Laure Calamy, a single mother working as the head chambermaid in a five star hotel in Paris with hopes of landing her dream market research job that would allow her space and time to breathe, something she rarely, if ever, is able to do in her current life. However, the obstacles that stand between Julie and her achieving this dream are seemingly infinite, creating a grippingly tense drama that is able to flourish without growing old all the way to the film’s conclusion. The entire film hinges upon Julie’s character, and we see the stresses of her life in excruciating detail, beginning with her blaring alarm waking her up at dawn. Her every move must be planned out in advance, because if it isn’t, Julie is thrown into chaos - exactly what happens when a nationwide strike hits, and the train system is rendered completely out of commission. In one day Julie’s entire capability to show up to work and make the money that provides for her family is swiftly eliminated. Suddenly Julie must rely on luck, chance, strangers and favours to get to work on time everyday. On top of all of that is the job interview Julie has been waiting and hoping for; one where she will actually be able to use her master’s degree in economics and follow her passions, instead of cleaning up the trashed and soiled bathrooms of the French elite.
To me, whether or not Julie gets this job was irrelevant. I even feel as though the final result could have been left out of the film altogether, although Gavel does include it in the film’s final scene. This was definitely a ‘journey not the destination’ type of film, that really shone when it was exploring socio-economic issues and class intersectionality. What I found to be the most perplexing yet intriguing theme of the film was the constant clashing between Julie and the strikes that were causing her so much grief. The pitting of one working class woman against an entire strike of working-class people frustrated ideas of class solidarity, yet the daily turbulence of Julie’s life - her inability to pay to fix her car for example so that she may stop relying on public transport - aligns Julie with those that are striking in more ways than she might realise.
As I was watching this film I couldn’t help but remember a certain A-list celebrity who recently told people to get off their asses and work. Gavel’s film is the perfect response to comments like this; it is just an added bonus that it happens to be an enthrallingly thrilling film too.
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Full Time screened at the 2022 Alliance Française French Film Festival. The festival ran in Melbourne from the 3rd of March to the 6th of April, for more info click here.