Metacritic-Rezensionen

Full Time . . . depicts the never-ending sprint that is Julie’s life as a struggling single mom, rendering this social-realist drama as a gritty, heart-pounding thriller, with breathless, naturalistic handheld cinematography by Victor Seguin and an adrenaline-pounding electronic score by Irène Drésel.

Without exaggerating any characteristic of suburban-mom life, steering clear of sentimentality or contrivance, Mr. Gravel succeeds breathtakingly in making us appreciate how much grit is contained in the Julies of the world.

Gravel, in the heart-stopping vein of Belgium’s social-realism-minded Dardennes brothers, invests his protagonist’s one-challenge-at-a-time needs with the kind of visual intimacy and racing rhythm that makes us feel intensely close to Julie, from first sprint in her dehumanizing day to the exhaling bathtub soak she takes each night.

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 is a master class in reactivity, and Calamy manages it with perfect dramatic pitch.

It’s a propulsively intense piece of filmmaking – at times a bit like watching a highwire chainsaw juggling act about to go horribly and catastrophically wrong.

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.

Although Gravel doesn’t make a big deal about it, Julie also represents something larger than herself. Her plight as a single working mother is far from unique. But Full Time doesn’t ennoble the working class.

Full Time works because of, not despite, its cutting thrills. The anxiety we feel as we watch is very much the point. Julie is living on the edge. The movie marvels at her ability to keep her balance. And it laments the fact that her survival should depend on it.

Full Time doesn’t have much to say about organized labor, or labor in general, other than that work can be really stressful.