I was quite interested to see Two Days, One Night because it deals with social themes affecting average people. Marion Cotillard plays a factory worker in a small solar panel plant who is laid off when the boss gives her 16 coworkers a choice – either she stays on or they get their bonuses, one or the other. A re-vote is declared for Monday, giving her the weekend to convince half the people to give up their bonus so she can keep her job.

It’s a wicked, stressful little narrative, made worse by the fact that she has been out on medical leave for depression, meaning her coworkers earned those bonuses without her help. The film seems to have tremendous potential to explore a whole host of social and political ideas. Unfortunately, it all plays out in the tedious, dull manner that one fears it might. People have various reactions – some get violent, some cry, some avoid her, some stonewall her – but the reactions are rather literal and not very interesting. You hear the same banal things over and over, and the film never at any point leaps upward to the level of sociopolitical ideas and commentary. It’s a whole lot of “I’m really sorry, but I need the money” or “Sure, I’ll vote for you”, which just doesn’t add up to much – you would never need to watch this film a second time.

The film does have a rather nice ending, however, and I found the realism of Cotillard’s family and home very refreshing; the family of four are crammed into an unspeakably small apartment (so small it’s noticeably difficult to film in), and the husband works at a ignominious place called the “Lunch Garden”). Supporting and incidental acting is quite strong. As for Marion herself, they tried really, really hard to make her look like an average working woman (i.e. ugly), but it didn’t work. She’s still way too beautiful, which led me to thoughts of “why doesn’t this woman just go into modeling if she gets sacked?” – it’s distracting, but not a huge problem. I thought her performance was very good, but not earth-shattering.

I’m not sure how to recommend Two Days, One Night. If you’re a Marion Cotillard freak, I guess you have to see it. If the film’s theme looks really interesting to you, it might be worth Netflixing at some point. But in the end, there’s no escaping the fact that Two Days, One Night undershot its artistic potential by a huge amount.