The Measure of a Man

(La loi du marché, Stéphane Brizé, France 2015, 93 min., DCP, French w/subtitles)

Labor Film Series | Rochester Premiere. Vincent Lindon gives a fine performance as unemployed everyman Thierry, who submits to a series of quietly humiliating ordeals in his search for work: futile retraining courses that lead to dead ends, job interviews via Skype, a critique of his self-presentation by fellow jobseekers. These experiences almost strip Thierry, a good father and husband, of his dignity and self-respect. When he lands a job in retail, surveilling both customers and fellow employees on video monitors, he faces one too many moral dilemmas. A powerful and deeply troubling vision of the realities of the new economic order—the law of the market.