Full Time (2021, Éric Gravel) (Patreon)

63/100

Run Laure Run! Actually, what Full Time most resembles, in its sheer relentless intensity, is Uncut Gems, and there's something revelatory about seeing that breathless pace and concomitant sense of impending doom in such a comparatively low-stakes context. Nobody's in danger of being killed here (though we do get one moment, toward the end, when it's strongly implied that Julie might step in front of an oncoming train just to get some peace); all of the anxiety revolves around mundane problems with which any single working mom might grapple, exacerbated in this case by a transit strike that keeps Julie perpetually behind schedule and often literally sprinting from task to task. Gravel and his editor, Mathilde van de Moortel (who previously cut Mustang), sustain an expertly frantic rhythm that conveys the impression of life as a sadistic hamster wheel, studded with brief oases that are invariably revealed as mirages. Just an exquisite balance between high-octane form and low-key content*, with the former demanding that we not shrug off the latter as inconsequential. (I especially loved Julie impulsively kissing a guy who fixes her hot water heater, the awkwardness duly registered and then immediately forgotten. Too much other shit to deal with.) And having made note of Laure Calamy in several small roles over the past decade—she was in Staying Vertical (as the swamp doctor), Sibyl, the superior but little-seen Ava that didn't star Jessica Chastain—I was excited but by no means surprised to discover that she holds the screen effortlessly as a movie's nonstop focus, always behaving rather than signifying. Despite the slight Safdies-ish familiarity, Full Time would likely be among my films of the year if not for its inordinately weak ending, which not only feels much too facile but is also easy to see coming from like half an hour away—you'd have to be very ignorant of narrative convention not to grasp that there's a reason why we're getting the strong impression that Julie didn't get the new job without explicitly being told that she didn't get the new job. (Gravel, who also wrote the screenplay, attempts a fakeout, but I didn't fall for it.) Still among the cream of last year's ND/NF crop, alongside Onoda and Rehana. 

* I only use "content" as a noun in opposition to "form." Despise it otherwise.