Two Days, One Night (2014)

I knew virtually nothing about Two Days, One Night (French: Deux jours, une nuit) when a couple of years ago I added it on my watch-list. I only knew it had Marion Cotillard and that was enough for me. But I kept putting it off because the French language isn't something I'm always in the mood for (specifically since I hear my mother and grandmother speak French every Saturday). 

The film tells the story of Sandra Bya (Marion Cotillard), a young mother and wife who has been on sick leave for depression and learns that no longer has a job as her co-workers have opted for a large cash bonus in exchange for her dismissal. She only has a weekend, hence the title, to convince the majority of her colleagues to give up the bonus so that she can have her job back.

As you probably guess from the short synopsis, Two Days, One Night doesn't have a particularly strong or complex plot. It is indeed rather simple. Despite this, it is gripping and compelling as it feels unpredictable and tense, and mostly because it isn't really about the result of the vote, but about the interactions between Sandra and the other characters.

The plot isn't that important anyway as Two Days, One Night is one of those movies that are entirely character-driven. Marion Cotillard's Sandra is a fragile, vulnerable and emotionally broken woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, who constantly doubts her own capabilities. She feels miserable, embarrassed about having to knock door-to-door and try to convince her co-workers to give up the bonus for her. But she needs her job and, pushed by her kitchen worker husband, she does what she needs in order to help support her family (being unemployed myself, although I don't have to provide for a family, I could relate and really understand what Sandra was going through).

Cinéart, Diaphana Films, BIM Distribuzione

Cotillard's performance as Sandra is nothing short of extraordinary. She makes the character and her emotions feel so real as she displays pure, genuine pain and suffering. You look at her face and you see a real woman who is suffering from depression, an exhausted, sad, defeated, disappointed, completely drained woman.

The supporting characters aren't as strong as the lead but that doesn't prevent the supporting cast from providing Cotillard with a stunning support, specifically Fabrizio Rongione who plays Sandra's supportive husband.

Two Days, One Night looks pretty good too. The locations are beautifully shot, the washed-out colours fit the film very and the hand-held camera that follows Sandra very closely during her quest makes the film even more atmospheric.