Reviews
Nothing Personal (Rien De Personnel) | Review
Look at All These Rumors: Gokalp Works the Room with Repetition
A timely commentary that serves as a reminder that the limits of workplace paranoia, within the current economic climate, extends well outside of the cubical. Reminding viewers that the current crisis is not singular to the Americas and Asias, this slowly dispelled, short in length debut offering from French helmer Mathias Gokalp will test anyone’s patience and could mistakingly be confused as a look what I can do because of its editing formula. Nothing Personal latches onto an idea and stubbornly works with it, but sadly, the Cannes Critic’s Week opener only really gets going in the film’s final act, and comparatively, an episode of television’s The Office has more going for it.
Economically shot in one location, Gokalp and Nadine Lamari’s screenplay happens to also be economically designed as well. The gimmick concept here is that the same sequence is reused three times with the first version coming across like a cohesive studio cut, and the final act and third version shows who does the carpet pulling. It’s a showcase in creative editing and how added vantage points and dialogue both expand and obstruct the viewer’s previous perception of the same scene.
Displaying how people are brittle at the slightest mention of job security, Jean-Pierre Darroussin plays the archetype character who gives himself his own poisonous dose. In the true act of protest, and jump the gun hysteria, he munches on the pieces of a champagne glass protesting his layoff to gauge a reaction from his union boss. Actually, once this character is further fleshed out, those extreme actions are viewed from a whole new perspective.
Much like Altman’s Gosford Park, the interesting component of this exercise is to witness firsthand how gossip spreads like wildfire, once it is out of control the foreground is filled with victims. Unfortunately, Gokalp is working with a well-mannered chaos here and the characters aren’t unhinged or strung out enough to make each repeated viewing all the more alluring. Thankfully, Nothing Personal contains a guessing game of sorts – figuring out the true puppet-master of the evening ends up being the only fun. It’s a moderately amusing film for adult audiences but not incendiary enough about the company downsizing theme it entertains.
Reviewed at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Critic’s Week Section.
90 Mins. May, 14th, 2009