An executive manager, his wife and his family, at the point when his professional choices are about to overturn all their lives. Philippe Lemesle and his wife are separating, their love irretrievably damaged by pressures of work. A successful executive in industrial conglomerate, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the contradictory demands of his bosses. Yesterday they wanted a manager, today an enforcer. Now he must decide what his life really means.
Acting
Vincent Lindon's face carries entire decades of exhaustion.
Direction
Brizé's unflinching static shots refuse to let you look away.
Writing
Dialogue so mundane it becomes traumatic.
Director
Stéphane Brizé
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Brizé and Lindon collaborated on multiple films exploring working-class dignity; this is their darkest examination of white-collar complicity.
Released during France's pension reform protests, the film's corporate brutality felt uncomfortably documentary to Paris audiences.
FR
