Full Time 2021

From the moment the clock alarm rings in the early-morning dark, Julie’s life is a headlong rush. Two pre-teen kids need mustering before she commutes from the distant suburban outskirts to her job in a Parisian luxury hotel, where rooms must be cleaned and rearranged to neat perfection with precision timing, no matter the appalling state guests leave them in.

Between wrangling childcare and travel costs, and maintaining a fragile balance, Julie is barely making ends meet and alimony isn’t forthcoming from the children’s father, despite her increasingly desperate demands. So, when the possibility of a job more fitting to her skillset and experience arises, she’ll go all out to make it to the interview. But she couldn’t foresee the impediment of a paralysing public transport strike or the myriad other compromises her precarious situation induces.

In a knockout performance, Laure Calamy offers welcome visibility to all the unsung women who struggle daily to hold it all together and maintain their dignity, despite the odds. — Sandra Reid