La Loi du marché (2015)
Directed by Stéphane Brizé

Film Review

For his sixth feature, director Stéphane Brizé teams up with actor Vincent Lindon for the third time - following their successful collaborations on Mademoiselle Chambon (2009) and Quelques heures de printemps (2012) - to deliver a hard hitting social realist drama that offers a scathing indictment of the way in which blue collar and low-skilled workers are presently treated in France as the laws of the market become increasingly stringent and unforgiving.  La Loi du marché (a.k.a. The Measure of a Man) treads ground recently covered by the Dardennes brothers in their film Deux jours, une nuit (2014) and sees Brizé adopting many of the Dardennes' familiar tropes as he develops his own raw style of cinéma verité.  Lindon is the only professional actor in a cast of non-professionals and instead of being constructed as a straightforward drama, the film consists of disconnected long scenes with the camera focused on the central character as he is subjected to one humiliation after another.

Barely recognisable, Lindon completely immerses himself in the role of the fifty-year old who finds himself on the proverbial scrapheap after being unceremoniously dumped by his merciless employers.  Losing his job is just the first of many indignities that come Thierry's way, the result of corporate greed that sees his bosses relocate their operations to a place where labour is cheaper and employment laws less onerous.  Then comes the long and arduous process of finding a replacement job, which for a man well into middle-age is nigh on impossible.  Job interviews, meetings with his bank manager, even an attempt to improve his interview technique all end in humiliation, and you can feel the rage building within the main character as he struggles to hold on to his dignity in a world that offers him precious little hope and even less in the way of respect.  The only thing that matters in this dog-eat-dog world is hard cash, and the film's main moral theme is how low Thierry is prepared to stoop to put this token of human greed into his pocket.

Thankfully, Brizé doesn't dwell entirely on the negative and reminds us that there are some things in life that haven't yet been totally decimated by the law of the market. The brutality that Thierry encounters in his quest for work is effectively counterpointed by the tenderness of his home life, and the love he shares with his wife and disabled son prevents him from being a tragic figure.  It is Thierry's concern for his family's well-being that compels him to accept a job that is beneath his dignity and ultimately leads him to a terrible crisis of conscience when he finds he has to betray his colleagues to his efficiency-obsessed employers.  Whilst the film's tone is a tad didactic at times, Lindon's dedicated performance (one of his best to date) gives it a gut-wrenching authenticity that brings home the terrible human cost of the relentless drive for profit that seems now to be governing our lives to the exclusion of all else.  La Loi du marché is a modest film that confines itself to depressingly familiar territory, but whilst it hardly breaks new ground it has a simplicity and humanity that make it a powerfully moving experience.

Film Synopsis

After being made redundant at the age of fifty, factory worker Thierry has a hard time finding another job.  After almost two years of fruitless job hunting, during which time he can barely support himself and his family on the benefits he receives, he finally finds work as a security guard in a supermarket.  Not only is he expected to watch out for shoplifters and ensure they are properly dealt with, he must also spy on his colleagues.  Thierry soon finds himself torn between his desperate need for paid work and his personal sense of justice...