Given the premise of this story I think most people could come up with a script to equal or surpass the one in this movie. The premise has a boss of seventeen blue-collar employees present them with the decision to forgo their bonuses in favor of not laying off a particular woman. That woman is Sandra (Marion Cotillard) whom we get to know throughout the movie. Sandra is recovering from an episode of depression and is just coming back to work, only to find out about the vote where the majority of employees voted to keep their bonuses. That would send most any person into a depression, so Sandra is indeed in a tough situation, given her already delicate emotional state. Also, she has a husband and two young children and losing her job would have a devastating effect on the family.
Feeling that her foreman had biased the vote by telling people that even if Sandra were saved, someone else would be fired, Sandra appeals to the big boss for a re-vote, and that is granted. From there the movie slips into low gear as Sandra tracks down her fellow employees and tries to convince them to vote in her favor. One after another we see her finding out where her colleagues live and going to their homes. She is seen, in *long* takes, walking, riding the bus, and being driven by her husband to the homes. What develops is pretty predictable. Some workers are swayed and some just feel that, given their situation, they cannot give up the bonuses they had worked for. We see how lower middle class people have a hard time of it and how varied their situations are.
I guess that there are some bosses dumb enough to set up a situation like the one portrayed here. The way these decisions are usually handled is to make the proposition of forfeiting bonuses, or raises, in favor of keeping all the staff on board, rather than signaling out a specific employee. Some things did point to why Sandra might have been singled out though. She had been on sick leave for depression with her ability to function in question, and the remaining employees could take up the slack in her absence. I got the feeling that Sandra was not particularly well liked and was surprised by how little she knew about her fellow employees, particularly given there were only sixteen others for her to know. It's not surprising that this situation produced a lot of strong emotional reactions--jobs and money strike at the heart of people's lives.
I like Marion Cotillard and feel she was good in this difficult role. Given that she is portraying a woman recovering from depression she has few highly dramatic scenes, so to appreciate her performance you have to key on her subtle reactions. The movie illustrates the difficulty in dealing with a depressed person and I vacillated between being irritated with Sandra's husband and his apparent insensitivity by goading his wife into painful situations that could easily send her back into full-scale depression. But then I had to realize what a delicate situation he was dealing with and moderated my opinion.
Getting through this was a bit of a slog. I found my attention had to be restrained from wandering.
Feeling that her foreman had biased the vote by telling people that even if Sandra were saved, someone else would be fired, Sandra appeals to the big boss for a re-vote, and that is granted. From there the movie slips into low gear as Sandra tracks down her fellow employees and tries to convince them to vote in her favor. One after another we see her finding out where her colleagues live and going to their homes. She is seen, in *long* takes, walking, riding the bus, and being driven by her husband to the homes. What develops is pretty predictable. Some workers are swayed and some just feel that, given their situation, they cannot give up the bonuses they had worked for. We see how lower middle class people have a hard time of it and how varied their situations are.
I guess that there are some bosses dumb enough to set up a situation like the one portrayed here. The way these decisions are usually handled is to make the proposition of forfeiting bonuses, or raises, in favor of keeping all the staff on board, rather than signaling out a specific employee. Some things did point to why Sandra might have been singled out though. She had been on sick leave for depression with her ability to function in question, and the remaining employees could take up the slack in her absence. I got the feeling that Sandra was not particularly well liked and was surprised by how little she knew about her fellow employees, particularly given there were only sixteen others for her to know. It's not surprising that this situation produced a lot of strong emotional reactions--jobs and money strike at the heart of people's lives.
I like Marion Cotillard and feel she was good in this difficult role. Given that she is portraying a woman recovering from depression she has few highly dramatic scenes, so to appreciate her performance you have to key on her subtle reactions. The movie illustrates the difficulty in dealing with a depressed person and I vacillated between being irritated with Sandra's husband and his apparent insensitivity by goading his wife into painful situations that could easily send her back into full-scale depression. But then I had to realize what a delicate situation he was dealing with and moderated my opinion.
Getting through this was a bit of a slog. I found my attention had to be restrained from wandering.