'Time Out' takes ironic look at downsizing

Joe Baltake

< BACK

"Attack of the Clones" is an apt title for just about any American-made movie these days, as imitation has become the modern plague in Hollywood.

But not so with foreign-language films, which are still more interested in the interactions and societal problems of humans than with computer-generated aliens with amped-up, digitally recorded voices.

A good case in point is "Time Out" ("L'Emploi du Temps"), the provocative second film by Laurent Cantet, who made such an impressive debut in 1999 with "Human Resources" ("Ressources Humaines"). On the basis of these two movies, the young French filmmaker has carved out an unusual niche for himself, seemingly specializing in movies about the importance of the workplace in our lives and how professional accomplishments can often dictate and define the relationships between fathers and sons.

In "Human Resources," a young man -- the first in his family to graduate from college -- is hired by the factory where his dad has worked all his life. One of his first assignments is to participate in the company's downsizing efforts, which means firing his own father.

"Time Out" looks at corporate downsizing from another angle, this time focusing on a more direct victim of it -- a middle-aged man who suddenly loses his job and whose identity is all knotted up in the acceptance and respect that his work has always commanded from his family and friends, especially from his distant father.

The protagonist here, Vincent (played by French stage actor Aur¨¦lien Recoing in his first major film role), was a middle-management consultant who handles this crucial loss in his life by pretending that it never happened. He doesn't tell his wife, Muriel (Karin Viard), but instead gets up every morning, gets dressed in his business uniform -- suit and tie -- and goes through the motions of leaving for work. Vincent and Muriel live with their two children in a small French suburb not far from the Swiss Alps.

When we're introduced to Vincent in the film's first scene, he's asleep in his car. Then we see him driving idly, going nowhere in particular, making periodic calls by cell phone to Muriel to fill her in on his day, discussing his tough negotiations and business decisions. It slowly becomes clear that Vincent has been going through this sham for quite a while.

These opening moments detail the first of many lies Vincent will tell throughout "Time Out," as he complains about "clients" who don't really exist and business lunches he never has. In one sequence, he drives to Geneva and manages to get past the security guard and into an office building that houses some management company doing consulting work in Africa for the United Nations. You could get the impression that Vincent is there for an interview, but instead he eavesdrops on professional conversations and rifles through the company's brochures, absorbing information about the alleged new position he's been offered, info he can pass on to Muriel the next time they talk.

Cantet got the idea for his movie from a fact-based tabloid story that ended in murder and attempted suicide in real life. Unlike another filmmaker who might have exploited the more sordid aspects of the case, Cantet deletes the violence and instead addresses the psychological unraveling of a man who loses himself when he loses his job.

The filmmaker also adds the compelling aside of never having Vincent bother to look for another job -- to actually go to an interview. He probably could find employment if he wanted to, but, rather, Vincent goes to the elaborate ploy of fabricating a job.

Although Vincent feels abandoned without his work, he is also somehow liberated by the loss. At first, he's immobilized, but as he starts to tell lies to Muriel about certain Third World projects he's working on, his imagination runs away from him. Soon he is away from home for days at a time on "business trips." He doesn't stay in hotels, but sleeps in his car in the parking lots of hotels. With no source of income, he starts pitching his old college chums, friends and even his father with investment schemes, involving bogus Russian securities, successfully defrauding money from them.

The ironic thing is that Vincent's father is impressed -- finally.

Although he is nondescript with his requisite middle-management look, Vincent attracts the eye of a small-time smuggler named Jean-Michel (Serge Livrozet) while loitering in a hotel lobby. Jean-Michel overhears Vincent trying to swindle yet another friend. He knows a phony when he spots one but likes Vincent's calm, low-key daring. He offers him a job, which Vincent takes because it's a way to pay back his friends.

¡¡

Cantet makes the subversive point that Vincent is able to pull off this virtuoso duplicity because, as a manager, he was trained to essentially do nothing except manage other people. Instead of employees, he now "manages" his wife, his parents, his kids and his friends.

The film is darkly funny in its observation of just how much more grueling and time-consuming the illusion of work is than actual work. In one near-surreal sequence, Muriel wants to see the apartment where Vincent stays when he's away on business, and Vincent takes her to an abandoned -- but cozy -- snowbound cabin in the Alps. Trudging through the snow, he's separated from her and you sense not only his panic but also his relief.

"Did you think you lost me?" Muriel asks when Vincent finds her.

As in "Human Resources," except for his lead roles, Cantet uses mostly nonprofessional actors. His only experienced players are the formidable Recoing (who's like a Gallic Kevin Spacey) and the Cesar award-winning Viard. By surrounding them with real people, the filmmaker brings a candid quality and a sense of urgency to his storytelling.

Nope, there's no need for special effects here.

From www.movieclub.com

< BACK