L'Emploi du temps
| Time Out | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Laurent Cantet |
| Produced by | Barbara Letellier |
| Written by |
Robin Campillo Laurent Cantet |
| Starring |
Aurélien Recoing Karin Viard |
| Music by | Jocelyn Pook |
| Cinematography | Pierre Milon |
| Edited by |
Robin Campillo Stephanie Leger |
| Distributed by | Haut et Court |
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Release date
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Running time
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134 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | €2.6 million |
| Box office | $2.1 million |
Time Out (French: L'Emploi du temps) is a 2001 French drama film directed by Laurent Cantet and starring Aurélien Recoing and Karin Viard. The film is loosely based on the life story of Jean-Claude Romand (though without the criminal element), and it focuses on one of Cantet's favorite subjects: a man's relationship with his job.
The film received considerable attention internationally and was shown at the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. It was one of the independent films to be featured at the New York Film Festival.
The film tells the story of Vincent, a middle-aged man who is fired after having spent more than 11 years working for a prestigious consulting firm. Unable to admit to his family that he has been fired, the unemployed executive continues to pretend he is going to the office every day. In reality, Vincent spends his time aimlessly driving the highways of France and Switzerland, reading papers, or sleeping in his car.
As time progresses, Vincent invents more and more elaborate lies, throwing himself into a vicious spiral of deceit. To sustain his bourgeois lifestyle, Vincent sets up a Ponzi scheme (an investment scam) and is eventually enlisted into smuggling by career thief Jean-Michel. Murielle, Vincent's wife, after discovering her husband's "life of lies" attempts to bring him back into the realm of reality.
Time Out received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 96%, based on 82 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The consensus reads, "A haunting psychological drama, Time Out takes a penetrating look at the angst of the modern worker." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 88, based on 30 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
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Wikipedia