QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE
Forty-two-year-old Paul (Bastien Bouillon) left his safe job as a photographer in order to work as a writer. He believes that he had no choice, and that his existence would be pointless unless he could put his ideas to paper. His latest novel sold less than 5,000 copies, and he is struggling to make ends meet. He’s desperate for a cash advance, but his publisher refuses to give him any further money. To make things worse, his ex-wife moved to Montreal with their two teenage children, relegating Paul to lead a very solitary life.
Left without any other choice, Paul enrols for a job auction app. Workers “bid” for very small gigs: gardening, assembling furniture, moving large items, etc. The twist is that the “offers” get lower and lower (as opposed to a real auction, where prices get higher and higher). He ends up doing menial – and often physically demanding – tasks for a risible amount of money. He lands €18 after mowing the lawn of a grumpy woman with shears for three hours, receiving a two-star review in exchange for his devotion. It’s “a race to the bottom”, Paul sums in up as he narrates his own story.
The film takes place in a cold and soulless Paris, a city where people have little time for strangers, and a place where it’s perfectly conceivable for a recognisable writer to go incognito as a humble handyman. The social commentary of At Work is shallow, if accurate and pertinent. Viewers barely wear the shoes of a working person imprisoned by the gig economy’s promise of flexibility. The focus isn’t on the hardship that the protagonist has to endure, but instead on his observation of the developments (Paul keeps notes of peculiar details on a pocket notebook), and his determination to carry on.
Paul is stoical and unfazed by his precarious final situation. Low-skilled jobs often left to immigrants do not mortify him. Meeting an old and far more stable friend on the backseat of his cab (Paul also works as a taxi driver, presumably on a gig economy model) does not daunt him. Quite the opposite. He plays Vanessa Paradis’s Joe Le Taxi, the jaunty pop tribute to cab drivers, on maximum volume to his unexpected client.
For Paul, his creative ambition remains paramount. Everything else is negotiable. Similarly to Virginia Woolf, he views writing as “the most profound pleasure”, and “being read” as a superficial distraction. His only major disappointment is that none of his family members have read any of his books. In fact, they discourage him from the carrying on in a profession that offers him so little financial security.
This is a movie filmed without any particular panache, favouring conventional handheld and medium shots. The extremely simple music score consists almost entirely of a piano attempting to inject a little light into the dim script. There is no technical wizardry. Occasionally, grainy images seem to suggest an imagination or an allegorical layer. The precise purpose of these dissonant textures is debatable. The antics feel confusing and redundant.
Another problem with At Work is that it is extremely predictable. You can see the final denouement from a million miles. This is the very familiar tale of a writer seeking inspiration, and finding the answers in their own life. French filmmakers Francois Ozon and Emmanuel Carrère dealt with the same topic in Swimming Pool (2003) and Between Two Worlds (2021) respectively, and to much better results. The former has s very surprising plot twist, while the latter stars a superb Juliette Binoche as a very famous writer going undercover and embracing a thankless job in order to jump-start her dormant imagination. At Work has nothing new to say. This is mostly unessential viewing.
At Work just premiered in the Official Competition of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.
