Zwei Tage, eine Nacht

I heard nothing about Two Days, One night before I decided to check it out on Netflix, and I must say that this is one of the best foreign films I have seen in a while. Actually it's just one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Two Days, One night tells us a story of a woman's desperate attempts to persuade her co-workers into making a very important decision that determines her future. The story focuses on human nature and our ability to give something up for someone we barely know. It feels incredibly intimate and human throughout and there were times where the emotions were so raw that I kept forgetting that I'm just watching a film. It felt so real and I really wanted to see this character succeed, mainly because her character was so well acted. The plot is very simple but there is a wavering sense of unpredictability and even tension as we watch this desperation-fueled journey unfold. The main plot line sets off many little strings of other interactions that I would never have saw coming, making this a unique and highly enjoyable first viewing.

The acting all around was fantastic. Our main character, played by Marion Cotillard, was emotionally broken and this actress did an amazing job showing it. She covered so much range in her performance that I simply could not keep my eyes off her, for more than just the obvious reason. She was excellently formed as we constantly see her entire demeanor and mannerism change after every character interaction. She reacted realistically in a way that made me feel very immersed within the film's story and narrative. I greatly wanted to see this character succeed at her goal, and if she had not been as well acted, I definitely would not have cared as much. Another great thing about Two Days, One Night, besides the excellent acting, is that we can all relate to it's personal and socially accurate storytelling.

Our character is seen asking many individuals to make quite a large sacrifice. The great thing is that we all know what this feels like. So we can place ourselves in the shoes of either character and feel incredibly attached to the story. This constant feeling of immersion and realism felt absolutely perfect and there was not one second where I felt like the film dragged or included an unnecessary scene. I enjoyed every second of it and I really didn't want it to end. But when that time did come, it felt extremely satisfying and understandable. There was no complex enigmatic riddle to solve or deep metaphor with infinite possible meanings to interpret. The ending was just as meaningful without any of these things.

I thoroughly enjoyed Two Days, One Night. It tells an interesting story that could very well happen to anyone. It was involving, emotionally raw, and just fantastically human.

You absolutely will be disappointed if you are looking for a "robot fighting robot" movie or anything superficial, or beautiful woman. (Well no one can say Cottilard is not beautiful, but she deliberately gives up her beauty to fit the character.)

This movie shows us what real emotions is. It reveals life in such a vivid and convincing way that you'll think about your own life, although you may be a lot better off than the characters.

After all this movie is a feast of fine acting, a reason that movies are still called art, and a spirit lifting experience that is going to linger on for a long time after you finish it.

"A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water." - Eleanor Roosevelt

How many of us would fight as hard as Sandra (Marion Cotillard) to keep her job? I suppose we would try to keep it, but she has to convince a majority out of 16 fellow workers to vote her employment rather than their 1000 Euros bonuses. She journeys in this intense film like some mythical mariner to each island person to convince that they should vote for her.

Not only does Sandra experience a heavy dose of humiliation by virtually begging to be kept as an employee, she also has to deal with her insecurity and the accompanying dependence on drugs to help her through this challenge and her recent depression. The film's limitation is the repetition for each co-worker she visits, as if they just repeat the script for each visit. Even when one segment turns violent, it's as if writer/directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne injected action in an otherwise flat line of activity. Overall, the Dardennes further their thematic interest in socialistic causes.

What elevates this drama into Oscar consideration is Cotillard, dressed not like a movie star (see La Vie en Rose and Midnight in Paris) but a working girl, little makeup accompanied by sleeveless tees and serviceable jeans. Make no mistake; she still is one of the world's most attractive actresses, my current fav. However, here she is believable as a vulnerable mother grasping for her job that the family desperately needs to survive.

Yes, although she has a contributing husband, Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), he is unusually supportive, almost to a fault. Yet, dramatically, he's positioned well to keep her in the forefront. She's not Sally Field's Norma Rae, who fights for a union in her textile mill, because Sandra's cause is personal in the 21st century, where Norma's in the '70's is about collectivism. Both women, however, have an intelligence and wit to get them through. As far as I'm concerned, that's part of what feminism is about.

I've never been a fan of Darwinian theory: why interfere when mother nature will straighten out the weak? Not especially after watching this simple, yet powerful film.

The Dardennes do not make make morality tales. Even though their characters navigate practical dilemmas that challenge their moral stance. This moral stance in turn, corresponds with realities in which these characters exist — it is a ramification of larger economic forces that govern the poor and working-class.

It is with that in mind, that the Dardenne's narrative strategy reflects neorealist tradition and normative ethics. The main point has always been for us, the audience, to observe the conditions in these characters' daily lives, how they conduct themselves or negotiate problems and resolve dilemmas. In a Dardenne film, we're allowed to engage unobtrusively, without passing judgements on what they choose and how they arrive at those choices eventually.

Two Days, One Night is set against the backdrop of an industrial town in Liège, Belgium. Sandra Bya (Marion Cotillard) is a working-class wife and mother who earns her living in a solar panel factory. After a nervous breakdown, she is forced to take a break from work. The duration of her absence isn't known to viewers, but sufficient for supervisor Mr. Dumont to notice it was possible to cover Sandra's work if all 16 workers pulled an extra 3-hours per shift.

Soon, the factory's management proposes €1,000 bonus to each staff if they agree to make Sandra redundant. By the time Sandra returns to work and knows what happened, majority of her co-workers had opted for the bonus. Factory foreman Jean-Marc influenced their votes by saying if Sandra wasn't laid off, maybe they (her co- workers) would be. Regardless, her fate has been sealed via democratic means.

Concerned friend and colleague Juliette appeals to Mr. Dumont and negotiates a secret snap ballot. Everyone will vote first thing Monday morning — will they choose the €1,000 bonus or Sandra? Because the factory's management surely could not afford both.

Two Days, One Night refers to the weekend: rest days where hard workers retreat in comfort to the sanctuary of their homes and private lives. When Sandra is forced to intrude people's lives on a precious weekend, visit each and every one of her 16 co-workers in a bid to change their minds before Monday (I use the word "forced" because clearly, Sandra was embarrassed and reluctant to do it), at one point she laments in self-disgust saying "I can't stand it. Every time I feel like a beggar, a thief coming to take their money. They look at me ready to hit me. I feel like hitting them too." But kitchen worker and husband Manu urges with maturity and understanding, "You have to fight for your job." Both knew Sandra cannot quite walk away and abandon work at the small factory. The family of four has just recently moved out of public housing. Sandra needs the minimum wage job to keep their heads above the water, to keep from going back to welfare assistance.

Much of the film has Manu drive Sandra around the small town of Liège, as the 48-hours clock goes ticking down with growing intensity. The first dilemma is presented as she goes knocking door- to-door, trying to convince fellow employees to give up a salary bonus that they too, badly need. Times are hard and money is tight, her interactions with each co-worker and their subsequent response to her plea is compelling to watch. Lesser film-makers will settle with a cookie cutter protagonist in need of sympathy, but this isn't the case with Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.

There is a real sense here that the space and reality of this film has the relevance of modern social-political commentary. "Will you vote for me?" — the same question when asked repeatedly, becomes illuminated by varying personal realities. Thus allowing the audience to consider the same situation with changing arguments and evolving perspectives. Every step of the way, the audience absorbs a broad spectrum of humanity as reactions toward Sandra ricochet between doubt and certainty: selfish and cruel, unapologetic and indifferent, defensive and guilt-ridden, conflicted and hesitant, kind and compassionate. At one point, it had me wondering if Sandra, for the sake of some colleagues so dangerously close to the margins of poverty, probably shouldn't be appealing at all — after all, their knapsacks are so much tinier and more fragile than the sling bag draped across her hunched, bony shoulders.

All the above reflects just one, out of several more thought experiments found in the plot design. One particular sub-plot examines Sandra's level of resilience as a recovering depressive, and culminates in an episode involving a box of Xanax. Here, Marion Cotillard turns in her role with master class technique — she applies subdued, matter-of-fact emotional tone with the kind of authenticity and resignation made possible only by an exhausted, dehumanized, defeated soul. Less is accurately more.

When I saw L'Infant at the Alliance Française de Singapour back in 2005; I was a young adult in her early twenties with the intellectual capital and moral patience of a fish. Coming out of my first experience with the Dardennes, my opinion towards main character Bruno, was straight forward and quite simply, disapproving — what kind of person sells his own newborn child for a meagre sum of money? I left the small theatre with obvious answers and a snap conclusion, partially dissatisfied and disappointed with the film's ridiculous premise.

Nearly a decade has passed and now having watched Two Days, One Night; I find myself weighing all variables in the complex social totality embodied by one simple observation: "Some people are so rich they don't know what it means to live with so little." I no longer believe in moral absolutes with the reckless naiveté of a youth. What an honest, complex and thought provoking film. How wide-ranging and realistic.

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It's as low key and quiet as a film can get. It's not enhanced for comedy, action, or drama. Just a realistic human story of the basic struggle to make ends meet in this world.

It's the type of movie that separates the movie geeks from the film geeks.

As a film geek, I can appreciate how the filmmakers did so much with so little, especially actress,Marion Cotillard.

The movie counts on her being realistic, all the way down to the weight it looks like she lost in order to play a woman who just got over an illness, and in order to get her job back spends a weekend visiting her coworkers in order to convenience them to vote for her to get her job back in a secret ballet on Monday, over a big bonus they would all get if she stays laid-off. She had to be believable as a proud woman who did not want to ask her coworkers of this, she did not want their pity, but she needed to support her family, a situation all of her coworkers are also in. It's a truly unbalanced and unfair situation for everyone and Marion did an excellent job portraying how uncomfortable that is.

As a movie geek, though the movie was watered down with absolutely no sugar, I'm glad it was not boring. It helps that the subject is something almost everyone who has a job in this economy can relate to, no matter which side of the equation you're on.

Definitely the type of picture we'll all be discussing long after the film is over. '