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Created Aug 14, 2015 09:45PM PST • Edited Aug 22, 2015 02:19AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Doleful economies are often enabled by Social Democratic governments, a reality brought to life in Two Days, One Night. Jobs are few and far between in 2014 Belgium, with a job at a government-subsidized solar-cell factory being the difference between home ownership and public housing. “The Dole” looms.

   The movie was funded by tax shelters in Belgium, France & Italy that carry names like Le Tax Shelter du Gouvernement Fédéral de Belgique and Casa Kafka Pictures Movie Tax Shelter Empowered by Belfius.

   You can’t make that latter one up: a Kafkaesque tax shelter in a country long-ruled by a “rainbow coalition” of Liberals, Social Democrats and Greens.¹ Those tax shelters elide steeply progressive tax rates of the sort employed by centralized economic control, as practiced by Social Democrats for subsidizing tragically unprofitable solar cell factories and penalizing “the rich”. Such industrial policy is beloved by the Left the world over. Sadly, it tends to result in widely shared misery, of the sort that the Left respects – from afar.

   I’m not OK, but you’re not OK either, so at least I’m not alone in misery: the socialist M.O. at play.

   Politics aside, Two Days, One Night is rightfully praised as another acting tour-de-force by French phenom Marion Cotillard. Playing a depressed wife, mother and breadwinner, she keeps it real, heartbreakingly so. At least she doesn’t lose her lovely legs, as in Rust and Bone, which was an altogether superior movie.

   I screened Two Days, One Night on the back of an airplane seat, squeezed between two other travelers. The pain on the little-big screen made me not alone in my misery. Left Wing solace, but better than nothing.

   ---

   ¹ Wikipedia

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Marion Cotillard received a Best Actress Oscar nom for Two Days, One Night. Her character should be on a Hillary Clinton for President poster, the very personification of depressed proletarians who vote Left.

   • Fabrizio Rongione is excellent as her stalwart husband.
   • Pili Groyne & Simon Caudry play their cute kids.
   • Catherine Salée, Olivier Gourmet & Christelle Cornil play her coworkers.
   • Batiste Sornin plays their hardhearted boss.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    OK 2.5

    The same two guys wrote and directed Two Days, One Night – Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne. They’re better directors than writers, not that their direction is anything more than workmanlike.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals OK 2.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.9

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Let’s hope the companies and economy in Belgium ain’t this bad. No one talks about improving revenue, just cutting people. Of course, as the Left’s centrally controlled economic policy expands, economic vitality declines. Everybody suffers, the Left Wing Economic Ideal. Everybody can complain, so shut the fuck up.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.3

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0