Review: Deux jours, une nuit

Belgian directors and Cannes favourites Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have long been portraitists of the working class, observing their economic, moral, spiritual, and psychological burdens in films such as La Promesse (The Promise), Rosetta, Le fils (The Son), and L'enfant (The Child). In Deux jours, une nuit (Two Days, One Night), they train their eyes on Sandra Bya (Marion Cotillard) as she attempts to retain her job at a solar panel factory.

Sandra is a wife and mother who has been on leave following a nervous breakdown. During her absence, her boss Dumont (Baptiste Sornin) and foreman Jean-Marc (Olivier Gourmet) have discovered they can survive without her, with the 16 remaining employees shouldering her workload by working an extra three hours a week. With Jean-Marc leading the charge, Dumont has given her co-workers a choice: get rid of Sandra and receive a bonus or bring back Sandra and forego the bonus. Urged by her husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione) and her co-worked Juliette (Catherine Salée), Sandra convinces Dumont to conduct another vote that coming Monday. It's up to her to convince the others to change their votes.

The Dardennes' trademark compassion asserts itself as we follow Sandra going from one colleague to another in a series of long, handheld shots. We can see that all of her colleagues have their own problems to bear. Their vote wasn't necessarily against Sandra, it was for something they needed. A handful of them have second jobs so they can make ends meet. One says the bonus would cover a year's worth of gas and electricity bills, another has a wife on the dole, another worries that his contract won't be renewed if he changes his vote, most have one or two kids that need feeding.

There's a lot at stake, not least of which is Sandra's emotional fragility. For most of the film, she wants to surrender, to live in a Xanax haze, crawl into bed and never come out. She has her pride, she doesn't want her colleagues' pity or to cause trouble in their lives. Yet she goes on - with ample support from Manu and Juliette, yes - but she goes on.

Cotillard, unvarnished and luminous, is wondrous. She maps Sandra's reactions - hopeful, dejected, doubtful, self-loathing - with emotional honesty and precision. So expressive is Cotillard that you could mute the film and still feel and understand every emotion. Sandra has little value in herself - "I don't exist. I'm nothing. Nothing at all." - but each encounter, regardless of result, builds up her character, strengthens her resolve and sense of self. You can hear it in the progression of her voice - tremulous and hesitant at first, quietly determined by the end - and you can see it in her squared shoulders at the film's conclusion.

There's a victory, but not the one expected. In the Dardenne's humane but unsentimental hands, it becomes a triumph of both the individual and collective spirit.

Deux jours, une nuit

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Written by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Starring: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongone, Catherine Salée, Batiste Sornin