Stéphane Brizé's La Loi du marché | The Measure of a Man (2015)

This film has been compared to some of Ken Loach's film, and of course those of the Frères Dardenne, who must to some extent themselves be influenced by Ken Loach: Loach is a huge name in European Francophone countries, and only a few weeks ago the left-wing Édouard Louis, who originally stems from a basic working-class background in Picardy, published a booklet containing a conversation he had with Loach: although without the humour of Loach, this superb film carries the same gritty realism and empathy for the downtrodden, the laissés-pour-compte, as the British director's.

Thierry (Vincent Lindon) is long-term unemployed ex-factory worker with a wife, and a child with severe communication problems. He runs the whole gamut of useless bank advice, scratching a living in poverty, and worse-than-useless unemployed courses which leave people more disillusioned and helpless than before. Eventually he finds a job as a security guard in a supermarket but has to walk out of it because his dignity won't allow him to collar cash-strapped fellow workers for stealing. Welcome to the modern world of work in which class solidarity is a thing of history. A super film which, as I say in the post immediately below, owes something to Patrice Deboosère's Lundi CDI.