The world of work has changed drastically in the past 20 years. In the course of the neoliberal, on deregulation and flexible labor market policy, the so -called GIG Economy has developed in particular as a new model, in which classic employment relationships are replaced by individual orders that are mostly conveyed via digital platforms – the bandwidth ranges from manual activities to driving services to deliveries of all kinds. Self -exploitation. Employees not only have to live with strongly fluctuating income, but also with insufficient social security.
With “Sorry We Missed You”, the British social realist Ken Loach has already dedicated himself in 2019 to the problem of the GIG Work based on the fictional but probably millions of working fates of a package messenger in Newcastle. In her latest film, French director Valérie Donzelli (“Life belongs to us”) is now also devoting herself to this topic. While the highly indebted protagonist at Loach as a victim of the financial crisis in 2008 actually had no choice, the main character of “At Work” is self -elected to the Precariat – it is the real, formerly successful photographer Franck Courtès, who voluntarily gave up his well -paid job despite two children, so that it is as good as not a paid font instead to go through.
The difficulty of staying writer
These years of the deprivation approaching asceticism should pay off: his third published novel “à pied d'eœuvre”, on which “at work” is based, was awarded the prestigious literature award “Prix du Roman d'ureprise et du travail” in 2024. But we experience Paul, played by Bastian Bouillon (“The Count of Monte Christo”) in the film in his deepest point: as a photographer, he earned up to 8,000 euros in some months. But then he discovered his writer ambitions and decided to put his bread job on the optic.
After two books that have been discussed benevolently, but have sold poorly, his future as an author is now hanging on the silk thread. His editor does not like his finished third novel, he was too autobiographical and, given the constant fire in the event of a long -term fire, the present caught in resignation is also far too negative. “Being a writer is one thing,” says Paul once from the off, “but writers remain a completely different thing.”
Paul (Bastian Bouillon) struggles with poorly paid occasional jobs to be able to write his fourth book.
His ex -wife has just moved to Canada with son and daughter. Paul is bankrupt and has already spent his advance, flights to his children are unaffordable for him. Another book is needed, but what does life in the meantime? In order to at least have any kind of income, but at the same time still have time to write, the struggling literary registered on a job platform based on a plenty of perfidious principle: The job seekers can apply to orders advertised by private individuals, with the one who is awarded the worship that demands the least money for work.
For a hunger wage, Paul now puts on the wall of the wall, shortens the lawn with a hedge trimmer, cleans bidets or builds furniture – almost always under the observation of his partly disproportionately critical customers despite the minimal financial effort …
One job after the other
Much more does not happen in “AT Work”: Paul accepts jobs, Paul has to justify himself in front of family and friends for his lifestyle, Paul writes a few pages – although until the end it does not become clear whether he really loves writing or does not like to see himself as a writer because he hopes for this. He was despised about his father, who never knew anything other than traditional office work-a “writer father” would have preferred. The fact that his children did not look up to him admiringly gently gnaws at him.
Everywhere Paul is surrounded by life that he would like to have but cannot have, and those that he could have but does not want – a constant internal transition. Even if you feel with him when he has to discover, for example, after a low-wage plant work on the balcony of a spacious Parisian old building apartment that there is still a second balcony, he is not unconditionally sympathetic figure. Unfortunately, it is not an interesting one, because Donzelli is hardly interested in taking out any ambiguities.
Didactic and awkward
Almost every scene and situation in “AT Work” has an exemplifying function. Hardly any dialogue does not revolve around Paul's professional decision and its consequence in any form, and whoever did not understand how Gig Economy works in the end will be explained in detail via Voiceover. But Donzelli's approach is not only didactic, but ultimately also transfigured if she makes Paul the great winner of a perverted poverty -promoting system.
The visual simplicity of her everyday realistic scenario is repeatedly breaks up with short, granular, in a flash -like manual camerabilder, which looks rather planless. When Paul finally gets the long -awaited praise from his estranged son and the camera deliberately cuts his tear -toen face, it is apparently that Donzelli is less about social realities than about satisfaction for her protagonist. Why you should be interested in this and why “at work” has to feel so pedagogically over long distances remains unclear.
Conclusion: Director Valérie Donzelli wants to tell something about a perverted world of work and the unconditional urge for art, but “at work” is above all didactic, largely monotonous problem cinema.
We saw “at Work” at the Venice Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated its world premiere as part of the official competition.