Rien à foutre

Here we have such an elegant - and true to its name - production. Essential direction (a first feature) with original camerawork, clean and colorful photography, postmodern medley music. Yet acting and especially the screenplay are top notch: there, lots of "fucks" are given.

Character study of a young lost soul and profession study of flight attendants (eye opening for all those not used to how complex multinational business organizations may manage their HR).

Despite its qualities you're warned: not really entertaining except for very few sparks here and there especially towards the end of the movie (the scene where the sisters talk with their dad was so touching I had to cry). Indeed mostly thought provoking, uncomfortable and a little slow (had to watch it at 1,25x) yet one of the best dramas of 2021 (I haven't watched "Murina" who won in the same category at Cannes, but I doubt this will be topped).

I might be a little biased since I find A. Exarchopoulos to be outrageously sensual - maybe it's more of an 8... but I swear I can give her movies low votes as well... Looking forward to the next Lecoustre/Marre's endeavours.

This is a film about the dehumanisation and Robotisation of humanity of the workforce after 40 years of neoliberalism.

It shows the workers of a bucket price airline being treated like automatons By management hired fired manipulated indoctrinated in whichever way increases profits for the shareholders.

It is a profound indictment of neoliberal capitalism and it is done extremely well.

The main actress Adele is so gifted and so charismatic that although the scenes depicted are about as fascinating as watching paint dry she still manages to instill life and emotion into this Death culture too many of the younger generations now think is normal life.

It is not easy viewing or comfortable and probably the source for some of the negative reviews here which seem to totally miss the point the reason the Raison D'Etre for this Opus

In some ways I cannot really describe it reminds one of the early efforts of the Nouvelle Vague in 1960s France.

It contains social reality depiction done in a clinical quasi-surgical Manner.

If you are interested at all in the way humanity is being turned into a farming pen for transhuman robots this is the film for you.

The comedy tag some have given needs to be qualified with the proviso that it is of the driest type.

It is not comedy it is a lucid indictment of the place we have collectively got to and that we need to get away from as quickly as we can if we want to remain human.

Yet the main actress manages at times to infuse humanity into some of the scenes.

The backdrop though Perforce will always remain sterile, boring, uninteresting, nihilistic, biocidal, doomed, headed to nowhere.

The lead actor played the role very well, but I didn't feel like the film was really going anywhere.

I cycle of scenes from planes, night clubs, hanging around the hotel/house.

It showed how empty and meaningless her life is. And highlighted how grim work can be at times.

I'm really not sure why IMDB categorises this as both a drama and a "comedy". There are precious few laughs here.

Instead, we see the relentless grind of a low-end job in a budget airline, with sales targets and ever-present management oversight - not to mention the usual challenges of dealing with the passengers. There are "R&R" interludes of course but even some of these look pretty joyless, as will resonate with any business traveller who has been stuck for a few hours in a supposedly "exotic" location with nothing much to do. Maybe it's all scripted, but many of the rambling interchanges here sound amateurish and improvised - perhaps deliberately to emphasise the feeling?

Adele fortunately is charismatic enough to carry pretty much the whole film single-handedly, although some of the supporting players are not too bad either, and the exploration of the home life from which she has run away adds to the overall picture of aimlessness.

The ending is nicely balanced, I think, and can be read either way ... is she on the verge of achieving a dream, or just switching one kind of drifting for another? Sartre would empathise, I feel.

Worth a look.

In an IRL filming technique I could very much believe this is how it is to be a flight attendant/cabin master. Speaking as a friend of a Pilot of a low budget airline in the USA, the stories he told me of how it is for real. After work during a few days layover they would have leftover mini alcohol bottles and he would drink and play video games online, then sober up and fly the next day. As far as the instagram fabulous life they portray, it seems that way but not really. I feel this movie really captured it all in a behind the scenes irl style even if it is scripted.