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Human Resources

Play trailer Poster for Human Resources Released Sep 15, 2000 1h 43m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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97% Tomatometer 32 Reviews 81% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Frank, a business school student in Paris, takes an internship at the factory where his father has worked for 30 years, only to find that the ensuing lay-offs and general downsizing -- which cost his father his job -- are deeply troubling. Father and son go head to head in Laurent Cantent's stirring story of business, family, and individual opinion.

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Human Resources

Critics Reviews

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Ginette Vincendeau Sight & Sound Generous, sensitive and innovative. It is a film in which, in the widest possible sense, the personal is political. Dec 2, 2002 Full Review Susan Stark Detroit News Rated: 3/4 Feb 27, 2001 Full Review David Rooney Variety A cogent human drama. Feb 7, 2001 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Laurent Cantet makes a brilliant feature debut in this timely and compelling French drama, in which a young man learns to take personal responsibility in both work and familt matters. Rated: A- Jun 29, 2011 Full Review Jeffrey M. Anderson Combustible Celluloid An interesting and tough little film. Jun 27, 2008 Full Review MaryAnn Johanson Flick Filosopher [C]aptures the recognizable ordinariness of middle-class people and the monotony of assembly-line work... But the film feels like a leftover from the 70s instead of a recent work. Dec 30, 2006 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member I feel like this show was a bait and switch. It is NOT a comedy. It is horribly depressing and seems to pander to women like the writers had some woke checklist they needed to adhere to. Nowhere neat as good as Big Mouth. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/12/23 Full Review Audience Member Even though the message it conveys about workers' rights is worthy of hearing out, the movie doesn't live up to its standards. Predictable, boring, amateur-ish acting at times, awkward static dialogues, bad editing, no music whatsoever... The movie seemed to go on forever. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member Human Resources es una película con una historia muy poderosa, triste y cruda pero totalmente verdadera. Es de las primeras películas que tocan de manera mas profunda y humana la vida e injusticias que enfrenta día a día la clase obrera. Lamentablemente no logró convencerme lo suficiente, tiene momentos bastante interesantes pero la mayor parte del film deja mucho que desear. No es una mala película, tampoco es excelente, simplemente le falto algo a la historia, a veces la sentía muy lenta, luego demasiado rápida y el resultado final es una sensación de confusión y decepción. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Human Resources es una película con una historia muy poderosa, triste y cruda pero totalmente verdadera. Es de las primeras películas que tocan de manera mas profunda y humana la vida e injusticias que enfrenta día a día la clase obrera. Lamentablemente no logró convencerme lo suficiente, tiene momentos bastante interesantes pero la mayor parte del film deja mucho que desear. No es una mala película, tampoco es excelente, simplemente le falto algo a la historia, a veces la sentía muy lenta, luego demasiado rápida y el resultado final es una sensación de confusión y decepción. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member "Human Resources" is the kind of film that can teach us more about human relations that some courses in human management. A deep vision about a family where the father and older daughter are blue-collar workers in a local workshop of metal parts and the younger son is a white-collar man that came from Paris to do his practices in his father and sister's job. He came with innovative ideas but in the end is smashed against the reality, taking account that he is only one more piece in the unmerciful machinery of the capitalist business. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review Frances H An excellent film that states the human side of the cost of manufacturing with issues that have been around since Dickens first wrote about them in Hard Times. Although without the high drama and theatrics of Norma Ray, this French film states the problem just as succinctly. Here the issue is a newly proposed 35 hour work week that management says will result in new jobs, and more pay for less work. The failure to institute the new scheme might result in closing the factory. The unions say the opposite--the pay will be less and the workers will have to work faster to get the same amount of work done in 35 hours that they used to do in 40, there will be no new jobs and benefits will be cut, as will overtime, plus there will be dismissals. Management gets an intern trainee to make up a "questionnaire" on the problem that one union official finds highly suspicious, and to which she strongly objects. The naive young trainee believes his boss's statement that the workers should feel good about being asked for their opinions, which management really wants. But like the Prague Spring and Mao's Cultural Revolution in China, the opinions are really asked to use as a means, along with closeness to retirement, for deciding which employees to fire. The resulting war between management and union brings out family conflict when the trainee's father is fired after 30 years on the job and the father-son conflict, along with the working class father's feelings of inferiority compared to his college educated management son, takes the forefront. Shades of D.H. Lawrence! Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/20/14 Full Review Read all reviews
Human Resources

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Movie Info

Synopsis Frank, a business school student in Paris, takes an internship at the factory where his father has worked for 30 years, only to find that the ensuing lay-offs and general downsizing -- which cost his father his job -- are deeply troubling. Father and son go head to head in Laurent Cantent's stirring story of business, family, and individual opinion.
Director
Laurent Cantet
Producer
Caroline Benjo, Carole Scotta
Screenwriter
Laurent Cantet, Gilles Marchand
Distributor
Shooting Gallery
Production Co
MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Procirep, BBC, La Sept-Arte, Centre National de la Cinematographie, Haut et Court
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Canadian French
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 15, 2000, Wide
Release Date (DVD)
Jan 13, 2006
Box Office (Gross USA)
$122.8K
Runtime
1h 43m
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