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FULL TIME: 2021 (Available for streaming on Prime Video for $3.99) This film is described as a heart-pounding thriller from French Canadian writer/director Eric Gravel. It received an impressive 98% from Critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 95% Audience Score. I must warn you that the movie is in French with closed captions. I thought Barbara and I might have trouble with that, but we didn’t. From the opening credits to its last shot barely 90 minutes later, the film never eases up on its intensity. We never had any trouble following the heart-in-your-throat, ticking-clock thriller about precarious single-motherhood. The movie hangs on the performance of Laure Calamy, a César Award-winning French film and TV actress. I can’t remember a single scene where the camera wasn’t focused almost entirely on Calamy’s gripping performance. She delivers a sympathetic and complicated performance as Julie, a divorced mother of two children who works a grueling job as a head chambermaid in a five-star Parisian hotel. Literally running from dawn to sunset to keep her life financially afloat, Julie is constantly on the verge of a breakdown. An ex who is late with his alimony payments and a Parisian transportation strike adds to her multiplying problems. The outstanding performance by Laure Calamy elevated Full Time from a mediocre film to an adrenaline-packed thriller. GRADE B+

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