Full Time (À plein temps) is a French-language film directed by Eric Gravel. The main character Julie Roy (Laure Calamy) lives in a Paris suburb with her two young children. We first see her waking in the early hours of morning, making breakfast, and getting her kids ready for school, before heading to the train station for her daily commute to work. She works as the head maid at a 5-star hotel in Paris, and appears to run a tight ship, delegating assignments efficiently to other maids, and cleaning up the mess (putting it kindly) left behind by guests as best she can . After her shift, she commutes back home, picks up her kids, makes dinner, and goes to sleep. And this cycle starts all over again the next morning.

This seemingly non-stop daily grind would be demanding enough in a normal week, but for Julie and the rest of Paris, this no normal week. As we gather from radio and television broadcasts, there are ongoing protests, and transit strikes happening across the city. This turns Julie’s routine commute into a logistical nightmare. She races to catch one of the few remaining trains on one day, and on another she gets to the station only to find all trains have been cancelled, and replaced with overcrowded buses. As the situation gets from bad to worse, Julie is forced to hitch a ride with a stranger, just to get back to her children.

On top of that, she has to train a new maid at the hotel, her ex is behind on his alimony payments, and her neighbor isn’t sure if she can watch the kids for much longer. All of these circumstances compound, and you can’t help wonder how Julie can take it any longer. Even a kid’s birthday made me feel a little nervous, as I wondered just what will happen next.

When I first read the premise for the film, that of a single-mother trying to get to work during transit strikes, I never would imagined it would be so gripping. The music, as well the film’s camerawork helped set the tone, and accentuated the tension-driven atmosphere of the film. It made it feel more like a heist film than a drama. The film is singularly driven by Laure Calamy’s excellent performance here. She is in nearly every frame of the film, and her body language, and facial expressions perfectly embodies a person hanging on by a thread.

Although many of the factors to Julie’s situation are beyond her control, there there are also some decisions she makes, and corners she cuts, that eroded a little of my sympathy for her. We learn early on that she has a job interview lined up, but it means skipping out on work, and relying on co-workers to cover for her. I have to imagine she’s making a respectable amount as the head maid of a luxury hotel, so I really have to question why she’s taking such high risks here.

I was reminded of Uncut Gems while watching Full Time, or perhaps it’s better to say, I felt a similar degree of unease and anxiety watching both. There are also some similarities too. Like in Uncut Gems, the protagonist is stretched thin, and makes certain questionable moves in the hopes of a big payoff.. These are big gambles however, and if things go the wrong way, the results could be detrimental. I won’t reveal how Full Time ultimately plays out, but the movie manages to keeps us in suspense till the very end.