Time Out: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Without a multi-million-dollar ad campaign to give it a kick or a major American star to give it a lift, Laurent Cantet's "Time Out" did just what was expected of it over the weekend—it slipped through the cracks and essentially went unseen in spite of being superior to the three major Hollywood releases: "The Bourne Identity," "Scooby-Doo" and "Windtalkers.”

The film has those qualities that tend to kill a movie, especially one released during the summer months: subtitles and substance.

It's focus is on real life, which has gotten a bad rap lately, and on real people, who have almost gone missing from today's box-office-obsessed Hollywood. Still, I can tell you this: It resonates more deeply than any explosion and is more filling than any Scooby snack.

The film, from a script by Cantet and Robin Campillo, follows Vincent (Aurélien Recoing), a mid-40s businessman so humiliated and ashamed to have been fired from his job, he invents a new life for himself, vaguely informing his wife, Muriel (Karin Viard), their three children, his parents and their friends that he's found new work just over the French border in Switzerland.

No such job exists, but Vincent, now caught in the web of his own lies, starts spending extended periods away from home. Driving aimlessly through the French countryside and often sleeping in his car, he keeps in touch with his wife via his cell phone, sharing with her the highs and lows of a life that doesn’t exist while trying to shield her from the disappointment of what his life has become.

When it occurs to him that he can’t maintain this façade without an influx of cash, he starts selling shares of a bogus investment fund to his friends and acquaintances, easily pocketing hundreds of thousands of francs in the process.

What’s remarkable about “Time Out” is how convincingly Vincent is portrayed as a victim in spite of his victimization of others. He’s no sociopath, but a man whose increasing sense of guilt literally shimmers in his eyes and boils beneath the cool mask he presents to the world.

His identity is defined by his work, but since he feels he’s nothing without his work, he fabricates a powerful position for himself and plays the role he believes men are supposed to play.

When he realizes that it’s that role that might be the real illusion, the nightmare of his duplicity strikes and his life jackknifes to a conclusion few will see coming.

Grade: A-