Two Days, One Night

Sandra is coming back from depression and about to return to work when the company puts it to a vote: either she keeps her job or everyone takes a thousand euro bonus. She has one weekend to visit sixteen colleagues at home, one by one, and ask them to give up the money. The idea is real. The Dardenne brothers found a case in a sociology book about a worker at Peugeot whose manager had the staff vote on his dismissal in exchange for a larger bonus. Marion Cotillard was the most famous actor they had worked with. They met her on the set of Rust and Bone, and Luc Dardenne described it as cinematic love at first sight. They first planned to write a doctor for her, and when the script stalled they returned to an abandoned project about a factory worker. The shooting discipline is severe. They worked chronologically with very high take counts: 56 takes on one scene on the second day, 82 by the fourth. Cotillard asked for more, and some sequences reached 95 or 100. It drew a standing ovation at Cannes. Belgium's Oscar submission did not pass the shortlist, but Cotillard became the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for a Belgian film. Who it is for: viewers who value social realism and films built on a single idea. Who it is not for: anyone who tires of repetition. The film has the same conversation sixteen times, and that is the structure.