''Time Out'' ( or 'Le Vendu') is a 2001

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Laurent Cantet Laurent Cantet (; 11 April 1961 – 25 April 2024) was a French director, cinematographer and screenwriter. His film ''Entre les murs'' ('' The Class'') won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Biography Laurent Cantet was born in ...

and starring

Aurélien Recoing Aurélien Recoing (born 5 May 1958) is a French actor and stage director. Personal life Aurélien Recoing is the son of (puppeteer), and the brother of (director and translator), Blaise Recoing (actor and musician), and David Recoing (pianist ...

and

Karin Viard Karin Viard (; born 24 January 1966) is a French actress. She made her film debut in '' Tatie Danielle'' in 1990. She has appeared in films such as ''Delicatessen'', '' L'Emploi du temps'', ''Adultère, mode d'emploi'' and ''La parenthèse encha ...

. The film is loosely based on the life story of

Jean-Claude Romand Jean-Claude Romand (born 11 February 1954) is a French spree killer and impostor who pretended to be a medical doctor for the World Health Organization for 18 years before killing his wife, children, and parents in January 1993, when he was abou ...

(though without the criminal element), and it focuses on one of Cantet's favorite subjects: a man's relationship with his job. The film received considerable attention internationally and was shown at the

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

and

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

. It was one of the

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...

s to be featured at the

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center. Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, NYFF i ...

Plot

The film tells the story of Vincent, a middle-aged man fired after spending more than 11 years working for a prestigious consulting firm. Unable to admit to his family that he has been fired, the unemployed former executive continues to pretend he goes to the office daily. In reality, Vincent spends his time aimlessly driving the highways of France and Switzerland, reading newspapers, or sleeping in his car. As time progresses, Vincent invents more and more elaborate lies, throwing himself into a vicious spiral of deceit. To sustain his

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

lifestyle, Vincent sets up a

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays Profit (accounting), profits to earlier investors with Funding, funds from more recent investors. Named after Italians, Italian confidence artist Charles Ponzi, this type of s ...

and is eventually enlisted into

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

by career thief Jean-Michel. Murielle, Vincent's wife, after discovering her husband's "life of lies" attempts to bring him back into the realm of reality.

Cast

as Vincent *

as Muriel * Serge Livrozet as Jean-Michel * Jean-Pierre Mangeot as Father *

Monique Mangeot Monique is a female given name. It is the French form of the name Monica. The name has enjoyed some popularity in the United States since about 1955, and is less common in other English-speaking countries except for Canada although mostly used ...

as Mother * Didier Perez as Philippe * Philippe Jouannet as Human Resources Director

Reception

''Time Out'' was acclaimed by critics. Review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reported an approval rating of 96%, based on 82 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The consensus reads, "A haunting psychological drama, ''Time Out'' takes a penetrating look at the angst of the modern worker." At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 88, based on 30 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The film was placed at 99 on ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

s ''best films of the 2000s, number 9 of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'''s best films of the noughties, and number 11 at ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...

''s top 50 films of the 2000s.

Accolades

References

External links

* {{Robin Campillo 2001 drama films 2001 films Films directed by Laurent Cantet Films with screenplays by Robin Campillo Films scored by Jocelyn Pook French drama films 2000s French-language films 2000s French films