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Éric Gravel’s “Full Time” follows an ordinary working-class person as they attempt to keep their head above water in a society that seems set up to ensure they will fail at said task. This is the kind of narrative the Dardennes brothers have made a specialty out of in recent years, but here it's done with breakneck pacing that will remind viewers of the similarly headlong “ Run Lola Run ” while leaving them almost as exhausted as its central character by the time it is all over. Though these two concepts may sound wildly incompatible, "Full Time" looks and sounds like a nail-biting thriller and tells a story that many viewers will be able to relate to on an intensely personal level.

The film’s protagonist is Julie ( Laure Calamy ), a single mother of two kids. She lives in the suburbs of Paris but commutes into the city for her job as the head chambermaid of a swanky four-star hotel. For her, this is not the ideal situation—she's struggling to make ends meet while waiting for her ex to pay alimony and the nanny (Madame Lusigny) who watches her kids ends up seeing more of them than she does. However, there's one bright light on the horizon in the form of a job opening at a marketing firm that would be a much better fit for her skill set than her current occupation. Getting to the job interview without her supervisor knowing her intentions will require some iffy behavior, including coaxing coworkers to risk their jobs by covering for her. In this case, she figures the risk is worth the reward.

The problem is that Julie is totally dependent on public transportation to get her to and from work. As anyone in the same circumstance can attest, many things can happen with public transit that are theoretically out of your hands but still have enormous repercussions on one’s livelihood. In Julie’s case, a week that's already going to be hectic because of the job interview becomes even more so when a citywide transit strike is called—although she barely seems to pay it any mind when it's being discussed on the news, the reality of its impact hits as the simple act of getting to work, let alone on time, becomes only slightly less fraught than the truck journey in “Sorcerer.” Despite the city being brought to a near-standstill, Julie goes to extraordinary lengths to try to make it work—rushing from one transit terminal to another in the hopes of finding a still-running train or bus, hitchhiking, or using her rapidly dwindling funds to pay for a van rental or a jacked-up cab fare. But she can only keep her metaphorical plates spinning for so long before the inevitable crash.

The notion of applying an action film feel to someone going about their daily routine may seem a bit precious, perhaps even contrived, but it is a conceit that Gravel is able to pay off effectively. From a technical standpoint, the construction of the film is very impressive as both Mathilde Van de Moortel’s editing and Irene Dresel’s score (both of whom received Cesar nominations for their efforts) give the film a sense of real tension right from the get-go and sustains it until the end—even the rare moments when Julie can steal a minute for herself are hardly a respite as we can sense how guilty she feels for even those all-too-brief bits of calm. And while it may sound like a gimmick, anyone who has ever raced to catch the bus to work as it's about to pull away from the stop or has waited on the platform for a late train will easily recognize Julie's pulse-pounding feelings.

At the same time, the film is careful not to completely let her off the hook either, whether in regards to her stubborn determination to be employed in the city despite a horrific commute (in order to live up to her dreams of upward mobility), or her general lack of concern for the motives behind the strike in general, or how her efforts negatively impact everyone from her children to her overtaxed nanny to co-workers who wind up paying the price for her behavior. Although her efforts to better herself are admirable, the same cannot always be said for Julie. It is to the credit of both Gravel’s screenplay and Calamy's performance (which both also received Cesar nominations) that they are willing to paint her as a recognizably flawed human being, and not some kind of cruelly oppressed saint.

“Full Time” does have a couple of problems it doesn’t quite manage to work around. While it's a key plot point that Julie never displays any significant curiosity about the strike that affects her life so profoundly, the film likewise doesn’t seem to have much to say about organized labor, the conditions that would lead to such a paralyzing strike, or whether it's in favor of such actions or not. As a result, the final moments in which Gravel tries to wrap up his story prove unsatisfying when all is said and done. For the most part, however, “Full Time” is an intelligent and mostly engrossing movie about a situation that will seem all too familiar to many. Gravel's film unites quietly observed humanism and palpable tension and somehow makes it work.

Now playing in select theaters. 

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Film credits.

Full Time (2023)

Laure Calamy as Julie Roy

Anne Suarez as Sylvie

Geneviève Mnich as Mme Lusigny

Nolan Arizmendi as Nolan

Sasha Lemaître Cremaschi as Chloé

Cyril Gueï as Vincent

Cyril Masson as Loueur de voiture

Lucie Gallo as Jeanne Delacroix

• Eric Gravel

Cinematographer

• Victor Seguin
• Mathilde Van de Moortel
• Irène Drésel

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Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

Welcome to our guide of the Best Movies of 2024, featuring every Certified Fresh movie as they come in week by week!

In April : Challengers , Abigail ,   Arcadian , Scoop , Wicked Little Letters , Civil War , Monkey Man , The Beast , and The First Omen .

In March : Love Lies Bleeding and Problemista , both from A24 . One Life , starring Anthony Hopkins. Ordinary Angels , starring Hilary Swank. In horror, we got You’ll Never Find Me and  Late Night with the Devil , the latter which also tops our best horror of 2024 list . Dialogue-free animation Robot Dreams and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World jockeying for the top spot here.

And what about February ? Dune pretty good, thanks for asking. Part Two went Certified Fresh within an hour after the reviews embargo lifted on February 21st. With it outclassing the first Dune , we took a look at 20 sequels that got better Tomatometer scores than their originals . Otherwise, things got freaky with horror film Stopmotion and the comic zaniness of Hundreds of Beavers taking the crown for the best-reviewed of the year.

We didn’t have a blockbuster January like we did in 2023 ‘s, when genre surprises M3GAN and Plane went Certified Fresh. But Daisy Ridley got her post-Skywalker win with Sometimes I Think About Dying . Mads Mikkelsen re-teamed with his A Royal Affair director Nikolaj Arcel to find The Promised Land. With The Crime Is Mine , Francois Ozon is getting career-best reviews, and his 10th Certified Fresh film over the past decade-and-change. And Netflix scored with The Kitchen , Orion and the Dark , and Good Grief .

Robot Dreams (2023) 98%

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) 99%

The Crime Is Mine (2023) 98%

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (2023) 98%

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Late Night with the Devil (2023) 97%

Io Capitano (2023) 97%

Tótem (2023) 97%

The Promised Land (2023) 96%

Challengers (2024) 89%

Hundreds of Beavers (2022) 95%

Fitting In (2023) 95%

Love Lies Bleeding (2024) 94%

Limbo (2023) 94%

Driving Madeleine (2022) 94%

Dune: Part Two (2024) 92%

Femme (2023) 93%

The Settlers (2023) 93%

About Dry Grasses (2023) 93%

La Chimera (2023) 93%

Cabrini (2024) 91%

Orion and the Dark (2024) 91%

One Life (2023) 90%

Stopmotion (2023) 90%

The Kitchen (2023) 89%

Monkey Man (2024) 89%

Problemista (2023) 88%

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Arcadian (2024) 84%

The Beast (2023) 84%

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Ordinary Angels (2024) 84%

Civil War (2024) 81%

Riddle Of Fire (2023) 82%

The First Omen (2024) 81%

Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) 81%

Wicked Little Letters (2023) 80%

You'll Never Find Me (2023) 79%

Scoop (2024) 77%

Suncoast (2024) 76%

Good Grief (2023) 76%

Self Reliance (2023) 72%

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‘Full Time’ Review: No Rest for the Working Girl

A breathlessly tense portrait of modern labor, this French drama stars Laure Calamy as a single mother who hits her breaking point during a nationwide strike.

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By Beatrice Loayza

“Full Time,” the second feature by Éric Gravel, begins with a womblike moment of rest before pushing the pedal to the floor and launching us into the chaotic workweek of Julie (Laure Calamy), a single mother and the lead chambermaid of a 5-star hotel in Paris.

Julie’s routine is demanding yet commonplace: She drops the kids at the nanny’s house, rushes to make the train, endures a lengthy shoulder-to-shoulder commute and settles into her shift tending to the whims of the hyper-wealthy. Then it’s back to the exurbs and the restless little ones, while the slivers of time she manages to carve out for herself are consumed by applying for a new job. Then repeat.

The film is a portrait of modern labor that moves with the breathless tension of a Safdie brothers’ joint. But instead of gangsters and cocaine, it finds a flurried momentum in one ordinary woman’s everyday obligations, which threaten to break her when a nationwide strike throws her tenuous act off balance.

Unpredictable public transport delays and cancellations get the worker bee in trouble with her snooty boss and septuagenarian nanny, while taxi rides that cost triple the rate of a regular ride drain her bank account. Her ex-husband hasn’t paid his alimony and hasn’t been answering his phone, and it’s their eldest child’s birthday this weekend. Improvisation is necessary, from hitchhiking to nudging the doorman for favors, but Julie — given anxious verve by the always-magnetic Calamy — isn’t a shameless hustler so much as she is acting sheepishly out of necessity.

Julie isn’t in a position to throw off her uniform and hit the streets in protest, but the movement (and the inconveniences it causes) isn’t the problem — it’s a symptom. Worked to the bone because of her inability to find decent employment and child care, because her supervisor only values her insofar as she obeys like a robot, Julie is a veritable Everywoman, in thrall to a system that demands productivity at every turn. Such a life makes one brittle, but there are no breaks.

Full Time Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters.

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Jerry seinfeld’s ‘unfrosted’ divides critics: “one of decade’s worst movies”.

The comedian's directorial debut is getting strong reviews from some top critics, but most are not bowled-over by the Netflix cereal comedy.

By James Hibberd

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Jerry Seinfeld is having an odd time lately.

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Seinfeld’s Unfrosted (trailer below) is a zany star-filled comedy that tells the story of rival cereal companies, Kellogg’s and Post, “racing to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever”— Pop-Tarts. Seinfeld stars in, co-wrote and directed the film, which also stars Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Sarah Cooper and Bill Burr.

Out of the gate this morning, the film has only a 46 percent positive critics score on Rotten Tomatoes which — as Tony the Tiger would say — isn’t exactly g-r-r-reat! Some reviews are downright scathing, as you’ll soon read.

And yet, some of the country’s top critics at publications like The New York Times , Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle gave the film modestly positive reviews.

But let’s start with a few notices that won’t be lucky charms for the film.

The Chicago Sun-Times declared Unfrosted “one of the decade’s worst movies. I’m surprised … Seinfeld, one of the sharpest and most observant comedic minds of his generation, didn’t halt production halfway through, call time of death and apologize to everyone for wasting their time. Unfrosted is so consistently awful it makes the aforementioned Flamin’ Hot seem like The Social Network . If there was a thing called the IMDB Witness Protection Program whereby you could get your name taken off the credits of a particular project, this would be that project.”

The Daily Beast called the film “as bad as you’d expect.” “Superior to Seinfeld’s prior cinematic offering, 2007’s animated  Bee Movie , it’s content to be childishly silly rather than legitimately weird, veering between gags concerning age-old products and Jan. 6 with a mildness that keeps things pleasantly pedestrian. There’s nothing particularly awful about it, but there’s also very little that’s memorable.”

Collider wrote: “Considering we’re in a world where  Barbie  can make $1.4 billion and become a commentary on feminism and the patriarchy, or Tetris, Air Jordans, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos can get their own halfway decent biopics, it’s a shame  Unfrosted  doesn’t try a bit harder. Again, even a film like  Weird  managed to make its jokes and cameos work as part of a larger story, whereas  Unfrosted  always puts the story itself on the back burner.”

But comedy is, if nothing else, subjective, and several top outlets rather enjoyed Unfrosted .

The Guardian wrote “there’s a steady stream of excellent gags, creating a rising crescendo of silliness similar in effect to Seinfeld’s own distinctive falsetto-hysterical declamation at the moment of ultimate joke-awareness …As a whole, it’s not exactly a masterpiece, but amiable and funny in a way that’s much harder to achieve than it looks.”

The Washington Post gave the movie 2.5 stars and wrote, “ Unfrosted may be the Platonic ideal of the Netflix movie: ephemeral, edible, enjoyable, forgettable. It’s essentially Jerry Seinfeld inviting everyone in his Rolodex to come on over for an extended hang to parody the current craze for trademark biopics … The hit-to-miss joke ratio is decent — about three gags land for every one that gets stuck in the toaster.”

And, yes, The Hollywood Reporter was among the positive reviews , calling the film “gleefully silly,” and writing, “For those willing to put aside reality for 90 minutes, as  Unfrosted  does with gusto, the Netflix movie whips up a frothy sendup of storytelling tropes and clichés … At the helm of a cast filled with virtuosos of comic timing, Seinfeld draws performances that are, for the most part, understated, effectively heightening the ridiculousness of the setup by playing it straight … Best of all, there’s not a drop of corporate mythologizing in the mishmash of factoid and fantasy.”

Unfrosted was released today on Netflix, so feel free to Chex it out yourself.

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Neve campbell is “grateful” studio listened to her salary concerns ahead of ‘scream vii’ return, jar jar binks actor ahmed best on ‘star wars: phantom menace’ backlash: “everyone came at me”, adam driver controls time in first-look clip for francis ford coppola’s ‘megalopolis’, ‘unfrosted’ writer unpacks the pop-tart movie’s buzziest moments — including that tv reunion, box office: ‘the fall guy’ headed toward $28m debut, ‘the idea of you’ producer cathy schulman carries a torch for melodrama.

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A Man in Full review – skin-crawling Trump satire is a worthy Succession replacement

Jeff Daniels rages as a crooked real-estate mogul staring into the abyss of bankruptcy in this lavish take on Tom Wolfe’s novel. It’s just a shame the swearing can’t compete with the real deal

A Man in Full is largely about dicks. Metaphorical, mostly, but with the occasional real one popping up to cause trouble here and there.

The biggest metaphorical dick in this six-part Netflix adaptation by David E Kelley of Tom Wolfe’s satirical novel is Charlie Croker (Jeff Daniels). He is a good ol’ boy, Atlanta born and raised, turned real-estate mogul who has enjoyed swinging his appendage all over the state for his many years on the rise. Shortly after his lavish 60th birthday, however, he is summoned by the bank for what he thinks will be a simple refinancing meeting, only to find that they are calling in the nearly $1bn of loans they have made to him. Why? Because, explains banking head Harry Zale (Bill Camp), who could not be enjoying this more, “I am talking to a shithead about one of the worst cases of mismanagement I’ve ever seen.” The bank reckons too much has been spent on private jets, lavish 60th birthday parties and – above all – a private quail plantation for hunting and not enough on actual business. Croker is technically bankrupt. The party, and the quail hunting, is over.

Also at the meeting and barely able to keep his grin of satisfaction to himself is Croker employee turned nark Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey, producing an absolutely skin-crawling performance throughout). It’s not all fun and games for him though, as his own (actual) dick has recently impregnated a young eastern European woman (“Also, I let him put it in anus”) who now wants $700,000 to compensate for the inconvenience of giving birth to his son.

Among the others involved and/or invested in Croker’s impending fall are his first wife Martha (Diane Lane, most recently seen in Feud: Capote vs the Swans and cementing here her welcome mid-life career resurgence), whose assets may not be as disentangled from her ex-husband’s as she had hoped, Martha’s best friend Joyce (Lucy Liu) who becomes a vital part of a second plot strand emerging slightly later on, and – most harrowingly – his receptionist Jill Hensley (Chanté Adams) and her husband Conrad (Jon Michael Hill). They are Black, and when Conrad becomes caught up in a police brutality case, his situation – aggravated by the furiously racist judge overseeing it – rapidly descends into nightmare. Charlie provides the pair with one of his lawyers, Roger White (Aml Ameen) and with other help, but as he is further distracted by his own problems, the Hensleys only suffer more.

White has his own problems too. His old college pal Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper) is the mayor of Atlanta and running for office again, this time against a dangerous Maga-esque candidate, who could win. Unless the rumours that he sexually assaulted a women back when he used to pal around with White’s boss are true … Could Roger dig around and see if Charlie knows anything he could use? An unethical thing to do, sure, but it’s for the greater good of Atlanta, and its Black population especially.

With Kelley at the helm and Regina King directing, it was hardly in doubt that a smart, propulsive drama would unfold and A Man in Full is very much that. And, of course, although Charlie Croker is a better man than Trump (and, fictional or not, a deeper and more nuanced character), the tale of a man who has built most of his overvalued empire on confidence, bullying and bluster rather than sound business sense is timely. Though (possibly unlike Trump) Daniels’ Croker is not quite unpleasant enough to have you rooting for a painfully humiliating financial demise; you feel you won’t be shedding many tears if it comes to pass.

If, however, as seems likely, A Man in Full is Netflix’s attempt to capture the post-Succession audience, it may have a way to go. The new series is a solid, satisfying thing but it lacks a true satirical edge and it lacks flair. Every line in Succession was whetted to the finest edge and the whole thing was fired by an extraordinary rage, fierce intelligence and a profound knowledge of its characters and the world in which their real-life counterparts live. A Man in Full is a fine adaptation of Wolfe’s novel, but even the plentiful invective (“Time to take a Clydesdale piss on that man’s head”) cannot measure up to that side of Jesse Armstrong’s creation. A Man in Full is workmanlike in comparison. But perhaps that’s invidious. Standing alone, it is more than good enough.

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Led by Laure Calamy's gripping performance, Full Time serves as a sobering reminder that just staying financially afloat can sometimes feel like a white-knuckle thriller.

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