Time Out

Director: Laurent Cantet
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 3.0

It seems like both Cantet and the Dardennes are high on Deleuze & Guattari and some of the other Post-Marxists, as all three filmmakers - more than any other working director(s) - have tried to address the problems with capitalism and the mindset of people working nine-to-five jobs (although without the D&G jargon). The 'protagonist' (who looks like a cross between Kevin Spacey and Larry Miller) has been fired from his job and hiding the information from his overly neurotic wife (stay off the phone, dear) and children, turning down 'actual' job offers to live a 'fake' life, swindling friends out of money and engaging in some form of self-deception (or an elaborate kind of denial) ... but it isn't total self-deception because he realizes, when a poor but happy musician-friend offers him the tiny nest-egg he and his wife saved up that he's doing something wrong. Engaging, complex (although a little long - the third act is a slight let-down) and tense, it's another fine work in Cantet's blossoming filmography.