The Measure of a Man is a stark depiction of a family man struggling with unemployment, portrayed by a stalwart of contemporary French cinema Vincent Lindon, in his most acclaimed performance (which earned him, among other accolades, the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival).
Lindon is a brilliant interpreter of working class and underworld characters, possessing a presence and style which can withstand both grander and more understated forms of expression. Lindon is in almost every frame of this film, which mostly consists of long very close-up takes, and the events are experienced with an intense closeness through him. Sporting a thick moustache and a curly mane, Lindon is almost like a Finnish brooding grump in his role as the long-unemployed Thierry, a man who rarely speaks or shows emotion. Yet we only need to follow the events alongside the observant Thierry to deduce what’s going on inside his head.
Within his apparently harmonious family, Thierry has a wife and a developmentally disabled son, who nonetheless manages reasonably well in school and dreams of vocational studies. However, raising the boy and paying for his education demands money. With Lindon’s help, Stéphane Brizé beautifully illustrates what kind of emotional wringer the protagonist is put through as a family man seeking employment. He eventually lands a job in supermarket camera surveillance, monitoring other poverty-stricken people like himself – at which point the pressure really begins to mount.
Timo Malmi