Full Time Review
By David Kempler
No Time
After watching director Eric Gravel's "Full Time," a French tale of a woman leading a frenetic life in and around Paris, the overriding feeling I was left with was a desire to avoid that area at all costs.
Julie (Laure Calamy) is a single mother of two young children who lives in a small town near Paris. Every morning, while it's still dark outside, she drops the kids off at the babysitter and then runs as fast as she can to catch the train for the commute to Paris.
After she gets off the train, presuming that she's likely to get to the train on time and that there is a train to catch, she runs as fast as she can to her job as head chambermaid in a five-star hotel.
More often than not, there is no train because the workers are on strike, so she is forced to take a bus that may or may not be available. Sometimes she has to do the commute by hitchhiking, and one time she even rents a car for one day.
In almost every frame of "Full Time" she is running and/or worrying about being late for work or getting back in time to pick up her kids at the end of the day. Gravel doesn't seem to understand that we can tell she's being pushed past human limits, so he adds a film score that screams anxiety.
To complicate matters, because things aren't crazy enough, she has a deadbeat ex-husband who doesn't take her desperate phone calls because he owes her alimony, so she is going broke.
To add yet more complications, she is interviewing for a new position, forcing her to miss time at work and putting her even closer to the brink of losing her job. Her life is not filled with calmness and serenity. That is hammered into us in almost every single scene.
So, what exactly is Gravel trying to impart to us? Is it the plight of women? The plight of a single mother? The plight of working in a modern-day, big-city society?
I'm not sure.
In the last scene, there is an abrupt moment where Julie gets good news, but, is it really good news? The film immediately fades to black and the credits begin to roll.
Ms. Calamy does a great job as the lead, and while I'm sure there must have been a few moments she's not on screen, I can't think of one. "Full Time" isn't a bad film, but it felt to me like watching a hammer hit the same nail an awful lot of times. I've talked to others who liked it a lot more than I did, so maybe you'll like it, too, but mostly I was thankful when it was over.
