THE MEASURE OF A MAN

French title: LA LOI DU MARCHÉ

3 ½ stars

A slice of life French drama done in cinema verité style. We observe like a fly on the wall our protagonist (Vincent Lindon, who won last year’s Cannes acting award for this performance) coping with the loss of his well paying union job and the frustrations that follow. These include useless vocational re-training, awkward Skype interviews and, finally, taking a low paying security guard job to pay the bills. While not exactly exciting or uplifting, the movie is an interesting experience in empathy with our Everyman hero, caught in cogs of a globalized economy.