French director Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man opens with Thierry (Vincent Lindon), an unemployed, 51-year-old father, explaining that his social worker just wasted 15 months of his time—which means that now, his government stipend is running out. So: Who’s pumped for an extremely realistic film about an out-of-work French father?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. But hold up! Don’t write this one off just yet.
Thierry is less desperate than many: He and his wife nearly own their apartment, yet he’s too young to retire and too disinterested to start a new profession. The father of a promising yet developmentally disabled teenage son, Thierry is almost okay—and that’s what makes Measure of a Man such a living, breathing, walking nightmare to anyone who has a reason to fear unemployment. This could be you! Or me!