2.3.24
Full Time isn’t a scathing critique of capitalist life in Paris, nor is it overtly critical of the strikes, but it’s still an impressive drama with an Uncut Gems-esque energy which illuminates the lives of women experiencing ‘the triple shift’. As Julie, Laure Calamy has a youthful vibrancy and delivers great bursts of energy portraying a divorced yet academically proficient mom of two. Life has got her down in terms of the combination of work, kids, financial precariousness, and not having enough hours in the day to get things done. But she hangs in there, just barely. It’s such an authentic and relatable to anyone balancing a demanding career and with their true callings that I was genuinely surprised to learn it wasn’t directed by a woman.
Laure Calamy’s performance fully immerses us in Julie’s interior world with each weary sigh and slump of the shoulders, conveying her sense of being stretched too thin. Yet Julie remains indomitable, as we see when she assembles a trampoline late into the night before her son’s birthday. Rather than manufacturing some melodramatic crisis, Eric Gravel’s controlled script wisely recognises that the everyday grind is ample material from dramatic storytelling without having to resort to conflict or violence.
Full Time avoids pretences, instead achieving a potent realism by unflinchingly depicting Julie’s taxing reality. Calamy’s remarkably unvarnished performance grounds Gravel’s understated approach, the absence of overwrought dramatics allowing the film’s impact to resonate with squirm-inducing familiarity – yet we can’t help but root for Julie to emerge victorious from each 24-hour gauntlet. It’s a modest film that echoes the untold struggles and weariness of countless modern mothers.