Un bon petit soldat

“At Amali, we look after our staff.” At the insurance company Amali, staff wellbeing is a top priority – at least according to the slogans. Carla (a brilliant Alba Rohrwacher) has just been appointed as HR manager and is tasked with breathing new life into the employer brand. Win-win situations, happiness workshops, performance targets: she speaks corporate jargon fluently. Until, behind the glossy corporate language, a case of toxic management emerges and the line between compromise and complicity becomes increasingly difficult to draw.

With Un bon petit soldat, Stéphane Brizé returns to the workplace, the setting against which he previously set The Measure of a Man (2015), At War (2018) and Another World (2021). This time, the focus is not on Vincent Lindon – appearing in a Brizé film for the sixth time – but on Alba Rohrwacher. Following Out of Season (2023), she plunges once more into his universe, bringing to the character of Carla a fascinating blend of determination and vulnerability. Through her, Brizé once again poses uncomfortable questions about the logic of performance that governs our lives. Where does professional ambition end and obedience begin? How much of our precious time are we prepared to devote to work, and for whom or what are we actually constantly performing?

Brizé largely keeps the outside world out of the frame, transforming offices, meeting rooms and workshops into an almost hermetic universe. Director of Photography Antoine Héberlé, with whom he has worked on films including Mademoiselle Chambon and Une vie, captures the corporate rat race in restrained imagery. Composer Bertrand Blessing, meanwhile, infuses the tight editing with a nervous energy through his pulsating score. Commuting crowds become a choreographed spectacle, whilst upbeat corporate jargon clashes with exclusion and humiliation. The result is as oppressive as it is cutting: a film about work, power and precious time in a world where people have become a resource.