It seems that some of the reviewers found this movie bad and boring. Some of them just didn't get it, and one (who calls himself "The Cinema Man")vents his dislike for leftist politics on this movie. Oh well, people see what they see." The Measure of a Man" is one of the best movies I've seen in last few years. In a series of vignettes played in real time we see an unemployed man in his 50's,who is desperately drowning in the modern world of low level sociopath bureaucracy. You don't have to be vengeful leftist to see the deep level of dysfunction on our planet. Vincent Lindon, the only professional actor in this film, played a role of a lifetime. Brave and unflinching actor in a brave movie for frightening times.

A very fine movie about life in the modern global economy. First the hero is cheated by a so-called training business center when he finds out there's no chance of his being hired for what he was trained in and the business knew it (see Trump and his so-called university -- but what do we expect from an illiterate egomaniac?). The hero who is barely hanging on to middle class life by his fingernails is constantly humiliated or badgered by experts who are "trying" to help. He winds up with a job at a box store in security where he sees people/customers humiliated, long term clerks fired for minor infractions caught on CCTV (that's the object, the co. -- a Walmart copycat -- is trying to trim down the staff and goes after long-term employees, one of whom commits suicide on the store premises). The hero also has a son with multiple sclerosis who has to pass inspection in order to qualify for college. This is what the social/economic net boils down to. The director is telling the truth ...

The docu-drama is the genre that brings you up close and personal to real life. Its hyper-realism can make you feel like a witness to a real-time situation, often with jittery hand-held cameras, minimalist acting and cluttered sets that recreate the existential ordinariness of everyday living. We find all of this in The Measure of a Man (2016), an outstanding docu-drama that is excruciatingly realistic. It is also a grindingly slow story that compels us to witness the everyday indignities endured by ordinary people who struggle through harsh economic times.Set in France, the story is told through the eyes of middle-aged and life-weary Thierry (Vincent Lindon) who lost his machinist job a year ago when his factory closed. The plot line is based on a series of vignettes where Thierry endures the indignities of a principled man who must work in an unprincipled world. Plot and technique converge as we are drawn into Thierry's world to feel his suppressed anger and to see how far he can be pushed. The employment agency forces him to undergo training that proves useless; he must participate in self-improvement seminars and endure the sneering insults of less experienced people; and the condescending remarks by bank staff and job interviewers belittle him without offering hope. With a wife and special-needs son to support he must consider selling cherished assets, but then lands a job as a megastore security guard and things look brighter. The store wants to increase profits and lay off older workers so he must police petty pilfering by shoppers and staff. One by one, he sees human misery being multiplied by actions he is forced to take. Without saying a word, we feel his disgust and his moral entrapment.This is an unusual film and one that many audiences will find difficult to watch. While all films try to reach us emotionally, this one deliberately makes the viewer feel uncomfortable and even agitated to the point where some may want to leave. The shaky camera often adopts a fixed viewpoint and stays there for what feels like a squirm-in-your-seat eternity. We are there alongside Thierry while he interrogates a youth, a pensioner and several staff, and are silent witnesses to their palpable fear. The film title speaks of the measure of a man, but this compelling film dramatically demonstrates that the measure of modern society is how it treats the dispossessed and disadvantaged.

This is less a 'drama' than a documentary of what happens to people when their already difficult lives are made worse by thoughtless organizations and stupid funding regimes. Thierry has been laid off from his factory job. Presumably, he has stuck this sort of mindless work because he has a disabled son who needs constant care. Thierry is doing everything he can to keep his family together whilst barely scraping together an income. Unemployment is made worse by the organisations who are supposed to be there to help him back to work. They send him on inappropriate training schemes wasting everyone's time and effort as there is no work to be got afterwards. After numerous humiliations Thierry gets himself a shop security job and finds he's forced into making judgements about others that are, in reality, in as dire straights as himself. We wonder at what point he will break, and what he will do when he breaks? Its not a good ending but then, this is all too real for far too many people.