Bonus, Baby

Film: Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

I don’t remember precisely when Marion Cotillard became the darling of movie fanboys everywhere. I think it may have started with Public Enemies followed by Inception. Regardless, there were a few years in the movie blogging community when everyone seemed to be madly in love with her. I like Marion Cotillard just fine; I think her performance in La Vie en Rose is one of the best of the decade, but I don’t really understand why she was a “thing” for a few years. Regardless, in 2014, she earned a rare non-English-speaking Oscar nomination for Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Vie in French). Since this is the last chance I’ll have for more than the next week for something subtitled, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Two Days, One Night is a film with a depressingly realistic plot that is devilishly simple. Sandra Bya (Cotillard) has suffered a mental breakdown and has been forced to take a leave from her job working in a solar panel factory. During her absence, it is discovered that the other 16 workers, by each working an extra three hours every week, can cover her shift and complete her work. The film starts as she is ready to return to work, only to be told that the rest of the crew has been asked to vote. Either Sandra can return to work or they can each have a €1000 (a little over $1100) bonus. But they can’t have both. Pressured by the foreman, 14 of the workers vote for the bonus. Sandra is told this by her coworker Juliette (Catherine Salee), one of the two who voted for her.

A Bicycle Built for None

Film: Le Gamin au Velo (The Kid with a Bike)
Format: Video from The Magic Flashdrive on laptop.

Watching a lot of films causes some constant reevaluation. For instance, when I started this blog, I was convinced that Bobby, the kid from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still was easily the stupidest kid I’d ever seen in a film. Well, I’ve now seen Le Gamin au Velo (The Kid with a Bike), and thus the reevaluation. For the opening scenes, Cyril (Thomas Doret) eclipses Bobby in the stupid department, and also manages to be quite the little shit. As the film progresses, he doesn’t get much smarter or less shitty, either. Strap in, because he’s in almost every frame.

Cyril is a troubled child. Some of this comes from the fact that he is absolutely rock stupid. Actually, that may be unfair. It’s entirely possible that the kid is brutally stupid, and just as possible that he’s merely stubborn and unteachable to a psychotic degree. He’s been trying to reconnect with his father for a month, and it’s soon evident that his father has abandoned him at an orphanage. This doesn’t stop Cyril from running away to his dad’s former apartment and trying to break in or repeatedly calling the now-disconnected number over and over. He claims he just wants his bike back. At one point, Cyril searches for sanctuary in a doctor’s office and clutches onto a woman named Samantha (Cecile de France) waiting there. Eventually, he’s shown into the empty apartment, allowing him to discover that his father is gone, as is his bicycle.