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He just wants to provide for his family.Īnd yet, there’s something richer and more provocative going on beneath the surface of The Measure of a Man. Thierry isn’t looking for anything grand like redemption or contentment or secrets to the mysteries of life. The steps along that path are incremental, with tiny victories and despairing setbacks along the way. Finally, he does land a job as a security guard at a Walmart-like convenience store, but the film’s slow, steady pace continues. The Measure of a Man stays at a respectful distance, calmly observing Thierry’s progress toward employment or selling the family’s trailer in order to bring in a little money. Lindon is a master of silence, letting weary eyes and a generally haggard appearance suggest all the anxiety and frustration eating away at Thierry. Which isn’t to say that The Measure of a Man meanders without purpose: Every second, we’re absorbed by Thierry’s quest to simply make do.
What is the measure of a man series#
No, his misery simply makes him miserable, and The Measure of a Man studies how such a person who’s deep into middle age copes with a sense of worthlessness and failure.īrizé’s film recalls the stripped-down, handheld, naturalistic style of the Dardenne brothers, preferring to dramatize a series of simple moments rather than worrying about a tight plot. Brizé and Lindon (who also starred in Mademoiselle Chambon) don’t go out of their ways to suggest Thierry is heroic or that his misery somehow ennobles him.
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He doesn’t need to: As played by Lindon, Thierry is a suffer-silently kind of man, the sort who’s into finding solutions, not sitting around talking about his feelings. Without a job, the blue-collar Thierry must feel marooned-though he never comes out and says it. The Measure of a Man is a defiantly straightforward, realistic film about the way your psyche gets pummeled once you no longer fit into society. There’s nothing romantic about Thierry’s struggling, and filmmaker Stéphane Brizé ( Mademoiselle Chambon) doesn’t plan on offering phony uplift to make him or us feel any better. This French drama’s opening scenes are a series of real-time humiliations for Thierry as he looks for a loan, has an unsuccessful interview over Skype and stumbles through dancing lessons with his loving wife (Karine De Mirbeck). A machinist who was laid off almost two years ago, Thierry (Vincent Lindon) is struggling on several fronts: In his 50s, he doesn’t have the technical skills to compete in the modern job market, and he desperately needs to find work to help pay for special education for his teen son (Matthieu Schaller), who has developmental issues. The Measure of a Man (La Loi du Marche) never takes its eye off of Thierry.