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TIME OUT Send This Review to a Friend
The French had an especially strong presence at the 2002 New York Film Festival and Laurent Cantet's "Time Out," just getting its commercial release, was especially striking for compellingly exploring what some find a dead end in devoting one's life to struggle in the world of business.
When Aurelien Recoing as Vincent loses his job, he constructs a life of pretense. He doesn't tell his wife what has happened and fools acquaintances into thinking he is getting a new job. Events become increasingly complicated and menacing as suspense builds, although he film could be a bit shorter. Director Cantet had also directed "Human Resources," which dramatizes the plight of workers in the face of management manipulations and the disillusionment of a young man caught in the middle.
Cantet strikes a nerve with this story, which was co-written by Robert Campillo and Cantet, and it should resonate specifically with others who have experienced loss of employment with the attendant troubles that follow. While economic hardship is an obvious difficulty, a feeling of lack of self-worth is another. Suddenly in mid-life a person is unwanted and finding new employment at something one wants to do is difficult.
The way Vincent marks time is made interesting, as he drives and drives to nowhere in particular, makes calls on his cell phone, sleeps in his car and attempts to keep up the façade in the face of threatened exposure. He is off the job treadmill for the moment, but things cannot stay that way and the money-making scheme he hatches puts him on a disastrous course.
Cantet skillfully creates suspense. This portrait of a man in emotional turmoil, set against the background of the job market and the troubling social context, is a fine achievement by a director obviously attracted by film projects that have something to say about the human condition. A THINKfilm release.
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