Full Time

This is remarkable film that will feel utterly familiar to any parent with young children and quite unrelatable to anyone else. Perhaps even more familiar if you're a single parent with a dead-end job struggling to stay off welfare and keep your kids.

The backdrop is France, and specifically Paris, during a time of chaos as worker's strike. This rather echoes the current industrial action paralyzing the UK and forcing the working poor closer to the edge. If you can't work from home then this action is a dagger to the heart forcing you to run, run, run for dear life.

In "Full Time" that's Julie's world in a nutshell. To the backdrop of an insistent soundtrack that raises the tension to a high pitch she's constantly rushing from one crisis to another. Stress, fear and worry are etched into her features as she tries to avoid letting anyone down as the world conspires against her.

This is so utterly "not Hollywood" with no particular story arc, character development or artful dialog - instead it just "is" and we are voyeurs to a life slowly falling to pieces. Step by step Julie edges closer to the precipice. It's impossible to look away but deeply uncomfortable at the same time.

I guess this means that "Full Time" won't appeal to every audience but my oh my you should make the effort to catch it while you can. If you're looking for more than just pure escapism this is a film that captures a miniature of life in compelling detail.

Laura Calamy runs for her life, in a sense, and for the live of her children. There is no monster or serial killer out to get her: the challenge of this divorced mother of two, who has dropped long ago out of her career to raise her offspring, and now has to eke out a living by working as a chambermaid, is to make ends meet. We are in Ken Loach territory here, but À plein temps couldn't be more different, and frankly it's heads and shoulder above most of Loach's works. For a start, it's shot like a thriller: it's fast paced, and dry. It doesn't hector or guilt-trip the spectator; it doesn't depict its protagonist like a saint either: Julie Roy is as flawed as most people are. She is smart, can even be crafty, but has no time for moral refinement: for her, it's sink or swim, and she is determined to not sink (her only moment of genuine doubt arrives in the last third of the movie, in the scene at the station. The camera lingers on her back in one of the rare long shots in the film, and yet somehow we can read her thoughts -- this is the work of an author who truly masters their craft).

What put Julie in this situation is ultimately left to the spectator to decide. Has she at least partially brought it onto her by buying into a 50s-style suburban life myth? Is it society who has lost all empathy? Is there hope for her? I won't spoil the ending, but suffice to say, it's as powerful and dry and hard-hitting as the rest of the movie.

À plein temps is giving me hope for French cinema. It's a great movie. Don't miss it.

If you have ever had to juggle full-time work with parenting then you will appreciate this French movie, FULL TIME. The story follows Julie as she tries to secure a job that will enable her to better provide for her child. However, things do not go according to plan when a national transit strike throws a wrench in her plans.

The film does an excellent job of portraying the difficulties of working mothers. Julie is constantly torn between her responsibilities at work and her duties at home. She is also under a lot of pressure to perform well at both. This can be very relatable for many viewers who may have experienced similar situations in their own lives.

The lead actress, Laure Calamy, does an amazing job of conveying the emotional roller coaster that Julie is on throughout the film. She can capture the frustration, anxiety, and determination that comes with trying to balance work and motherhood. And the cinematography by Victor Seguin brilliantly shows the frenetic pace of the city and the director, Eric Gravel, chose to colour-correct Paris to make it look cold and hostile to Julie.

Overall, FULL TIME is a well-written and acted film that will resonate with anyone who has ever had to juggle full-time work and parenting. It is a relatable and moving story that is sure to leave you feeling empathy for single working mothers everywhere.

I had an overwhelming feeling of watching a Ken Loach film with subtitles, but better photographed and with more interesting music. A hard-working single mother is faced with an unrelenting series of dramas and setbacks. Unlike Ken Loach nobody has to die to wrap up the story.

There are days when you must wonder what the hell, as you're caught in one almighty, intense swell, fighting currents that don't ebb, trapped by an all-consuming web, in a battered, beaten, broken, burnt out shell.

It's a top drawer performance from Laure Calamy as the divorced mother of two Julie Roy, desperately trying to make ends meet and juggle a multitude of balls, while making the long commute to and from Paris working as a chambermaid. An opportunity to recover a career that she sacrificed for children is not helped on a day when strikes hit the transport system and her world becomes even more gridlocked, while an unsympathetic employer is not amused by her time keeping (amongst other things). You're left wondering how many women find themselves in the same or similar position and struggle to keep their heads above water.