StarCat/CatStar

Two Days, One Night of Hell
(Film Review) by Alison Ross
By far the best movie I saw last year was the Oscar-nominated Belgian film,
"Two Days, One Night." Indeed, it's one of the best movies I have seen in a
very long time. Its visceral verisimilitude strikes at my very core. Its
progressive, feminist message is hope-inducing, and for cantankerous ol'
me, that's saying a lot.
The story concerns Sandra, a Belgian mother, who is suicidal because she
loses her factory job due to some very cruel circumstances. Basically, her
depression rendered her unable to work for a time, and during her leave,
the company discovered they didn't really need her services. So, instead,
the company lays her off and agrees to pay her co-workers more. Their
salary bonus means she's out of work.
This outrageous scenario is further compounded by the company's
insistence that in order to win her job back, she must convince all 16 of her
co-workers to forego the bonus. She has one weekend to perform this
humiliating feat.
Marion Cotillard, she of "La Vie En Rose" fame (she played Edith Piaf
excruciatingly well), is devastating in her role as Sandra. She plays her in
a straightforward, unembellished manner, to the point where she fluidly
melds with her character. She is stripped of dastardly female stereotypes -