Utterly realistic in its depiction of the new, unsettling socio-economic order, The Measure of Man is a riveting and powerful feature that speaks directly to the zeitgeist of our times.
World premiering at the Cannes Film Fest (In Competition), the film is now being released theatrically by Kino Lorber.
Vincent Lindon won the Best Actor prize at both the Cannes Film Fest and the César (French Oscar) for his magnetic performance as a former factory worker struggling to keep home and family together after losing his job.
London plays Thierry, a mechanic who’s been unemployed for close to two years, has endured dashed hopes and constant rejection in his search for work. When he finally lands a job in security at a big-box supermarket, he is forced into situations where he must make decisions that go against everything he believes in.
Taking its French title, La loi du marché, from the “law of the market”—wherein if one wants a job another must be let go—Brizé’s deeply humanist drama makes plain the often humiliating and soul-destroying choices thrust upon ordinary people just trying to make a living in today’s economic climate. The film is given added resonance by the casting of non-professionals alongside its leading man.
Lindon, in his strongest role to date, renders a powerfully quiet performance as an Everyman, caught in a tangled web of economic circumstances, over which he has little or no control.
Also featured at the New York Film Fest, the film will open in New York on Friday, April 15 at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and Metrograph and at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on May 20.
