Two Days, One Night- 2014
Director-Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Starring-Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione
Scott’s Review #268
Reviewed August 21, 2015
Grade: B
Two Days, One Night is a French-language drama starring the wonderful and highly talented Marion Cotillard, who received an Academy Award nomination in 2015 for this role, and is the main draw of the film.
I never tire of viewing any of her film performances, however, I felt the film itself was lacking something special. An adequate film, yes, but below the standards in which I was expecting given the award recognition.
Quite frankly, the film is good, with an interesting tale of morality, but becomes redundant as it goes along.
Sandra, played by Cotillard, is a working-class woman living in an industrial town in Belgium. She works in a factory and struggles to make ends meet with her supportive husband, Manu. They have two young children. It is revealed early on that Sandra has a history of suffering from depression and has recently been forced to take a leave of absence from her job due to her struggles.
Now recovered, she is ready to resume normalcy, but her boss forces a vote among her sixteen colleagues in which they decide to either save her job or eliminate her position, thereupon each will receive a hefty bonus. Sandra, along with a co-worker she feels close with, convinced the boss to allow an anonymous vote the following Monday, leaving Sandra with one weekend in which to convince the others to save her job.
The conflict is that during Sandra’s absence, the department was able to run successfully so why is she needed?
The plot has an interesting moral concept. Will people sacrifice personal gain to assist someone else? The fact that Sandra is a kind woman makes the decision seem easy. However, many of her colleagues are struggling to put food on the table for their families and could use any extra wages manageable.
The audience is on the side of Sandra and her equally kind husband, who continually talks her out of giving up and instead encourages her to spend the weekend convincing the others to vote for her come Monday morning.
The weak point of the film is that it contains one basic formulaic story and does not branch out into anything more. The plot is simple- this is not a bad thing, but I was expecting a bit more from this film.
The action takes place throughout one weekend and the entire plot is that of Sandra traversing the town looking for colleagues to persuade them to vote for her. Most of the people she encounters are sympathetic and, if they cannot help her, they empathize with her. By the fifth or sixth person, we get that she needs their votes. It becomes the same scene over and over.
The character of Manu is undeveloped. We learn nothing about him except he is a devoted husband and father, but what about his feelings? How did he deal with Sandra’s depression? Strangely, many of the co-workers Sandra looks for are not home at the time, which requires her to go to the park or the laundromat, or the pub to track them down.
I question the authenticity of the story.
Sandra’s boss (the foreman of the factory) has the power to pit colleagues against each other (supposedly approved by management) and to control the destiny of one employee?
There is no Human Resources department mentioned throughout the story until almost the final scene when a manager appears, and it is never explained why the boss can get away with this. There is also no mention of a union, which in factory work is common.
Furthermore, Sandra and Manu never mention consulting an attorney- yes, they are poor, but surely a conversation might have occurred.
The title also does not make sense- Two Days, One Night- the film begins on a Friday and ends on a Monday morning. What does the title mean?
Two Days, One Night is a film featuring an honest performance from a talented actress (Cotillard), but a tad bit slow and tedious at times, all but repeating similar scenes over again.
The film is a nice, simple, quiet story, but nothing spectacular.
Oscar Nominations: Best Actress-Marion Cotillard