The Crisis

Victor is a legal adviser. He wakes one morning and his wife is gone; she has left a note. He goes to work the same day and learns he has been dismissed. In two hours both his marriage and his job are over. He looks for someone to talk to. First he goes to his mother; she is occupied with her own matter. He goes to his father; the man is in a new relationship. He goes to his friends; all of them have larger problems and nobody listens. On the way a man called Michou attaches himself to him; unemployed, without a home, and he does not leave. Victor cannot get rid of him. Coline Serreau writes and directs. Vincent Lindon plays Victor and Patrick Timsit plays Michou; Zabou Breitman and Maria Pacôme are in the cast. It is a French production. The film won the César for best screenplay. What the narrative builds is repetition; Victor tries to tell the same thing to everyone he meets and none of them listens. The matter it treats is not listening; the film shows it as a social condition rather than a personal fault. Michou is its opposite pole; he has nothing but he listens. Serreau builds the narrative as comedy, which makes the bleakness bearable. Some sections touch directly on the arguments about unemployment and racism in the France of the period. Its limit is structure; the narrative proceeds in pieces and some encounters give a sense of repetition. Who it is for: viewers who like French social comedy and character drama. Who it is not for: it repeats, the argument is plain, and the ending rushed.