fall time movie review

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Éric Gravel’s “Full Time” follows an ordinary working-class person as they attempt to keep their head above water in a society that seems set up to ensure they will fail at said task. This is the kind of narrative the Dardennes brothers have made a specialty out of in recent years, but here it's done with breakneck pacing that will remind viewers of the similarly headlong “ Run Lola Run ” while leaving them almost as exhausted as its central character by the time it is all over. Though these two concepts may sound wildly incompatible, "Full Time" looks and sounds like a nail-biting thriller and tells a story that many viewers will be able to relate to on an intensely personal level.

The film’s protagonist is Julie ( Laure Calamy ), a single mother of two kids. She lives in the suburbs of Paris but commutes into the city for her job as the head chambermaid of a swanky four-star hotel. For her, this is not the ideal situation—she's struggling to make ends meet while waiting for her ex to pay alimony and the nanny (Madame Lusigny) who watches her kids ends up seeing more of them than she does. However, there's one bright light on the horizon in the form of a job opening at a marketing firm that would be a much better fit for her skill set than her current occupation. Getting to the job interview without her supervisor knowing her intentions will require some iffy behavior, including coaxing coworkers to risk their jobs by covering for her. In this case, she figures the risk is worth the reward.

The problem is that Julie is totally dependent on public transportation to get her to and from work. As anyone in the same circumstance can attest, many things can happen with public transit that are theoretically out of your hands but still have enormous repercussions on one’s livelihood. In Julie’s case, a week that's already going to be hectic because of the job interview becomes even more so when a citywide transit strike is called—although she barely seems to pay it any mind when it's being discussed on the news, the reality of its impact hits as the simple act of getting to work, let alone on time, becomes only slightly less fraught than the truck journey in “Sorcerer.” Despite the city being brought to a near-standstill, Julie goes to extraordinary lengths to try to make it work—rushing from one transit terminal to another in the hopes of finding a still-running train or bus, hitchhiking, or using her rapidly dwindling funds to pay for a van rental or a jacked-up cab fare. But she can only keep her metaphorical plates spinning for so long before the inevitable crash.

The notion of applying an action film feel to someone going about their daily routine may seem a bit precious, perhaps even contrived, but it is a conceit that Gravel is able to pay off effectively. From a technical standpoint, the construction of the film is very impressive as both Mathilde Van de Moortel’s editing and Irene Dresel’s score (both of whom received Cesar nominations for their efforts) give the film a sense of real tension right from the get-go and sustains it until the end—even the rare moments when Julie can steal a minute for herself are hardly a respite as we can sense how guilty she feels for even those all-too-brief bits of calm. And while it may sound like a gimmick, anyone who has ever raced to catch the bus to work as it's about to pull away from the stop or has waited on the platform for a late train will easily recognize Julie's pulse-pounding feelings.

At the same time, the film is careful not to completely let her off the hook either, whether in regards to her stubborn determination to be employed in the city despite a horrific commute (in order to live up to her dreams of upward mobility), or her general lack of concern for the motives behind the strike in general, or how her efforts negatively impact everyone from her children to her overtaxed nanny to co-workers who wind up paying the price for her behavior. Although her efforts to better herself are admirable, the same cannot always be said for Julie. It is to the credit of both Gravel’s screenplay and Calamy's performance (which both also received Cesar nominations) that they are willing to paint her as a recognizably flawed human being, and not some kind of cruelly oppressed saint.

“Full Time” does have a couple of problems it doesn’t quite manage to work around. While it's a key plot point that Julie never displays any significant curiosity about the strike that affects her life so profoundly, the film likewise doesn’t seem to have much to say about organized labor, the conditions that would lead to such a paralyzing strike, or whether it's in favor of such actions or not. As a result, the final moments in which Gravel tries to wrap up his story prove unsatisfying when all is said and done. For the most part, however, “Full Time” is an intelligent and mostly engrossing movie about a situation that will seem all too familiar to many. Gravel's film unites quietly observed humanism and palpable tension and somehow makes it work.

Now playing in select theaters. 

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Film Credits

Full Time (2023)

Laure Calamy as Julie Roy

Anne Suarez as Sylvie

Geneviève Mnich as Mme Lusigny

Nolan Arizmendi as Nolan

Sasha Lemaître Cremaschi as Chloé

Cyril Gueï as Vincent

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Lucie Gallo as Jeanne Delacroix

• Eric Gravel

Cinematographer

• Victor Seguin
• Mathilde Van de Moortel
• Irène Drésel

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Fall Time Reviews

• 1 hr 28 mins
• Drama, Suspense, Action & Adventure
• Watchlist Where to Watch

When a practical joke backfires on three teens, they unwittingly become involved in a bank robbery. Mickey Rourke, Stephen Baldwin. Patty: Sheryl Lee. Tim: Jason London. David: David Arquette. Joe: Jonah Blechman. Paul Warner directed.

Standing as a good example of the Cinema of Cruelty, FALL TIME is a stunning examination of loss of innocence in the 1950s. It's not a coming-of-age ode but a coming-of-death rumination. Rebelling against the mapped-out constrictiveness of their futures, buddies-since childhood David (David Arquette), Tim (Jason London), and Joe (Jonah Blechman) run through their most elaborate practical joke ever. While they plan a small-town lark in which they'll masquerade as robbers and pretend to shoot Tim, a sinister pair of career criminals, Florence (Mickey Rourke) and Leon (Stephen Baldwin), are planning a heist of the same bank the teens have targeted. Foiling the robbery of the pros, Dave and Joey shoot a perplexed Leon with blanks and stuff him into the trunk of their car. Acting instinctually, Florence tracks Tim, terrorizes him into fessing up, and then decides to strong-arm the lad into carrying out the heist with him. Pulling a real weapon on the teens when they release him, edgy Leon imprisons the easily cowed Dave and Joey at their clubhouse and refuses to buy their far-fetched explanation. Paranoid, he badgers them into concocting a story of Florence's betraying him. Told that Leon will ice his buddies, Tim slips into Leon's role and knocks over the bank, but is surprised when Patty (Sheryl Lee), Florence's inside woman at the bank, claims to be an innocent teller after Tim takes her hostage. She seduces Tim after they flee the crime-scene to beat Florence to the hideaway. Before Tim can rescue his friends, Florence guns down Joey at the cabin. Seeming to appease doubtful Leon with this murder, Florence stabs his accomplice to death, rubs out Dave during his shot at freedom, and then wounds Tim. Corrupted by his recent experiences and grieving for his pals, Tim shoots down Florence, and watches wily Patty escape with the bank haul. FALL TIME runs the gamut from heavy-handed knowingness, present in the film's satire of Eisenhower Era complacency, to the icy brilliance demonstrated in its analysis of deviant behavior. Denied a theatrical release because of billing squabbles by the co-stars, this smartly constructed film plays like a joyride where the stolen car's brakes fail; the hapless boys fatefully get more than they bargained for simply by putting themselves in the wrong place at the worst time. Directed with sadistic relish, the scenes of the career criminals mind-gaming and torturing these teen rebels are almost unbearable. Although the bogus bank teller is a key plot element, the character diminishes the screenplay's over-all impact even as she supplies a sex break and provides climax-stalling suspense; somehow the introduction of the dishy dame upsets the delicate balance of the twisted big-brothering of the felons and their victims. Whether power-tripping each other or giving the victims a bitter reality check, Baldwin and Rourke are superb. More commanding than he has been in years, Rourke boasts a lopsided grin that even Satan might envy. Reveling in an opportunity to call the shots, passive-aggressive Leon is chillingly embodied by Baldwin: He is a slave who loses control without his master's domination. The homoerotic undertones in their relationships don't merely jazz up the film with aberrant psychological icing. Their sexual tension seems like role-playing learned as part of prison survival: Florence feeds off Leon's hero worship to get his own way. If the younger players aren't as memorable, that may be the end result of the nature of their victim roles. When they cringe with resigned hopelessness, however, the audience does, too. FALL TIME takes crime seriously, and in doing so, it's more repellently scary than most horror films.(Graphic violence, extreme profanity, sexual situations, adult situations.)

Fall Time Review

21 Jul 1995

Paul Warner's muddled first film jaunts back to the apple pie days of the 50s to tell a tale of lost innocence.

A trio of high school buddies contrive one last farewell to their smalltown world by pulling off an elaborate prank. Dressed in identikit gangster togs David and Joe (David Arquette and Jonah Blechman) plan to roll into their sleepy Minnesota town, gun-down their pal Tim (London) using blanks, bundle him into the boot and drive off to their cabin hideout leaving a bemused town behind. But instead, they hit and kidnap Leon (Baldwin), an identically dressed hood about to knock off the bank under the watchful eye of his partner Florence (Rourke).

Leon, dumb, nervy and sadistic, turns the tables and takes David and Joe hostage at the cabin. Unsure whether he's been double-crossed by Florence in league with the boys, he decides to torture them to find out. Meanwhile, the equally sadistic but infinitely more intelligent Florence is working Tim over in town to find out what he knows. Florence agrees that as long as Tim takes Leon's place in the heist, he may consider letting the boys live.

With the tension simmering towards the final meltdown, Warner inexcusably flips the fast forward button and the film blurs into an incomprehensible mess during which it's almost impossible to figure out what's going on, let alone why. The last half is so badly out of synch with the pace and fine drama of the first that even the efforts of the sterling cast can't save this unlikely yet well scripted study of the anomalies of the 50s.