Directors: Olivier Nakache / Éric Toledeno (France). Year of Release: 2023
2013, a French Presidential end-of-year address. After the usual blabla, the pres comments that it has been “a difficult year”. Cut to a few years earlier: different president, same address. Blabla and it’s been “a difficult year”. Repeat in the 1990s, in both 1981 and 1980, and once more in the 1970s. If these are clips of real presidents, as I presume they must be, its a great gag, even if it has little to do with the rest of the film,other than some characters will have money problems.
This opening helps explain both the French (Une Annee Difficile) and English titles. The German title, also in English, is trying to do something else, although it is not doing it very well. For this is not a film which is just about people with money problems, it is also about a group of activists who organise protests both against Consumerism (blockading shopping centres on Black Friday) and for the environment (sort of like Fridays for Future). It’s an inelegant title that doesn’t really work.
Nonetheless the opening scene, after the presidential address, is of a group of people – men and women of different ages – making their way towards the centre of town. Some of them are walking, others see their paths cross on the station platform where they wordlessly acknowledge each other. As they approach their goal, the group becomes larger, until there are enough of them to enter a Shopping Centre and form a human chain in front of one of the stores before it opens.
The shoppers queuing for bargains are not happy with this development. One man in particular says that he has an important appointment inside the shop. When the police arrive, and customers are allowed to enter the store, we see that his important appointment is with a large flat screen television. Inside the store, customers are literally fighting with each other trying to wrest bargains from each other’s grasp. In case you didn’t get the point, Consumerism is bad, kids.
We follow the man as he takes the tv to the house of someone he found online. It is full of potential new tenants as the current occupier hasn’t paid his rent for months. He is sat downstairs looking very depressed surrounded by a load of empty pill boxes and saying that he no longer wants to live. None of this stops the bloke with the telly from trying to get his credit card details – even after he collapses unconsciousonto the bathroom floor.
If only Black Friday for Future had stayed so utterly depressing, there might have been something to it. Unfortunately, from here on in it will try to be a light comedy. Bruno survives his suicide attempt, and for no particular reason becomes firm friends with Albert who does not succeed in selling him the telly. Both men have five-figure debts. Bruno will have nowhere to live when his house sold, while Albert is already sleeping in the airport where he works as a baggage handler.
It seems important to the film makers that although both Bruno and Albert have huge debts, they weren’t born poor. Bruno’s house is huge, and Albert’s debts are largely self-inflicted. This helps them portray poverty as an individual problem which is the result of bad personal decisions rather than having social roots. However badly off the protagonists are, they will be able to survive if they just show good character.
For reasons of Plot, Albert and Bruno inflltrate an environmental group, initially it seems because at their meetings they sell beer “for anything between nothing and €5” (ok, I’ll pay nothing is Bruno’s response). For some unexplained reason, they become more active. Is it because of the free beer or because they both become infatuated with a leading group member who uses the pseudonym Cactus? It’s hard to tell. This is not the sort of film which is big on back story.
The group of activists specialises in organising protests which look spectacular, but don’t involve much strategy or discussion of politics. They stop traffic and hector motorists about how Consumerism is destroying the planet, without explaining why in a way that would convince anyone. They certainly never discuss tactics among themselves – before an action happens, there is a show of hands, but no-one is asked to give their opinion of why they are for or against.
The result is a hodge-podge which seems sympathetic with the protestors – many of their actions are lovingly shot – without showing much understanding of why they are active. It is as if the directors heard that The Kids were into environmentalism this year, so opportunistically used this as a backdrop to a soppy love story. Police in the film are more Dixon of Dock Green than the CRS. Demos either peacefully disperse or demonstrators are sent home and told not to do it again.
The lack of understanding of what motivates the actions reaches its apogee when Bruno convinces the activists to stage a demonstration outside the French National Bank, as a pretext for a scheme which requires no-one to be working in the bank and an inventory system which can be altered with the use of Tippex )have computers not reached France yet?). Even the writer doesn’t have the courage of his convictions, and the plan is quickly shown to be unworkable.
And yet, as we are expected to invest in Albert and Bruno, they cannot be complete morons. Albert follows Cactus around like a love-struck teenager, but although she senses a spark between them, she is wedded to the cause. Towards the end, Bruno is given his own love interest, who he immediately dismisses as being too old and fat (ie she has the body shape of a normal person). He doesn’t have to say anything, we just need to look at his disgusted face when he looks at her.
I was looking forward to watching the film. The trailer looked like it could be fun, and it was addressing serious subjects. Directors Nakache and Toledeno made The Untouchables, which I remember being pretty good, although this must have been at least a decade ago now. But the whole thing is just too lazy. There is so little characterisation or wit that it gets very dull, very soon. Sadly, a wasted opportunity.
CinePhil 