User reviews

Here's the pragmatic approach that parents tell their children here - study the sciences because that will provide you a job. For Marta (Isabella Ragonese), even a top degree with honours in Philosophy fails to land her a permanent job, drawing some sharp contrast against peers who have dropped out of college, but steadily climbing the career ladder. The film has intent to examine the plight of permanent-temporary workers, you know, those who are under temporary contracts, but have to perform tasks and take on responsibilities just as how a regular staff would, but minus the staff perks.

I suppose companies take this approach with an eye wary on their bottom line, and sees this staffing strategy as something that's cost effective, virtually eliminating benefits from the payroll. The film might have been effective, with the introduction of unionist Giorgio (Valeno Mastandrea) who tries to understand the plight and conditions in the fictitious company Multiple (manufacturing who knows what product), but somehow lost its mission objectives midway because of a complication in matters of the heart, thereby relegating its own subplot.

This film is about the surreal journey of Marta as she tries her best to seek out a job, believing that her academic qualifications would open door. Contrary to her beliefs of course, Fate comes into play to introduce her to a single mom Sonia (Micaela Romazzotti) who works as a tele-marketer for Multiple, and recruits her into this really strange company with a very wide male-female division of the sexes, and feel-good ra-ra practices such as singing motivational songs at the start of each shift, and the receiving of cosmetic, encouraging SMSes in the morning everyday.

In other words, they operate much like a cult group, where performers get rewarded with dubious prizes, and laggards in the company get shipped out unceremoniously, with little dignity. Such is the sweat shop that Marta finds herself in, if not for her intellectual ability in internalizing the process in double quick time, and innovating in her job so as to perform with moderate inputs. For those who have worked in companies, or amongst peers who require you to jump, sing, shout, dance out loud in celebration of your employment or to serve as a mental prep booster before you commence each day, this film would definitely ring a bell.

And while the narrative might seem all over the place, it is precisely how director Paolo Virzi coaxes a coherent and at times zany story out of the multiple events, and myriad of characters. There's Daniela (Sabrina Ferilli) the floor supervisor who's a control freak, and harbours the hots for CEO Claudio (Massimo Ghini) who on the surface is the typical all- caring boss with a finger on the company's pulse. Then there's the romantic knot that Marta inadvertently gets herself into, and fellow sales partner Lucio 2 (Elio Germano) who preps himself almost all the time to think that he's the best of the best.

Throw in plenty of song and dance, self-reflection moments, gratuitous sex and nudity, changing relationships, and you have a film that tries too hard to cover a wide spectrum of ideas, but end up missing the bullseye more often than not. The film has its moments, but nothing too memorable besides those song and dance numbers that make the Beach Boys and some folk songs hip again.

Preamble for you foreign viewers: this movie is about the so called "permatemps"; that's temporary workers who effectively do the job of a permanent worker, but can be fired anytime and have no benefits at all. In the last 5-6 years in Italy, temporary job laws were introduced and had a devastating effect on society, especially on younger generations.

Finally a movie with heart about temporary workers, very well written and directed. You will be taken through the odyssey of Marta, a young graduate in philosophy who cannot find any job related to her studies, so to keep herself alive, she has to take a temporary job as a telephone-marketer.

While in the process of descending this inferno, she will get in touch with a wide spectrum of persons and situations, that will keep you interested in the story.

The writer/director does a very good job in building the story, you will really care for all the characters, even the two villains, who by the end of the movie show their human side.

My only remark to the script is when Marta engages in a totally gratuitous sex act that is very clichè, and the fact that the story does not really tackle with all the problems that a temporary worker has to face in Italy, mainly the inability to get any mortgage to buy a house, or the mandatory periods of time when the worker is left home without pay and then hired again later through a different mediating agency, which is the standard workaround to avoid the rather feeble restrictions imposed by the law.

Overall, this is a great movie that I recommend, it is an universal story about the de-humanization of people, that every viewer in the western world will feel connected to. Yet it still manages to be funny at times and rather moving.

Marta graduated with full marks in Philosophy but now she's facing unemployment. Such is the dire state of the Italian job market, since human memory (at least mine).

Marta is a positive girl, despite her mother being sick with cancer and her boyfriend leaving her for a job in the US. Maybe slightly too positive, as she seems totally unaffected by being alone, jobless and her mother dying, but super happy to get a sort of live-in, babysitting arrangement in a dump with Sonia, a scatter-brained, single mother. Then Marta gets a job in a call centre and she's very good at it, but starts to be disturbed by the blatant dishonesty of the firm employing her.

A darker side plot involves two high ranking employees Daniela and Claudio, who bought into the corrupt system, therefore tainted beyond salvation, while Marta can still redeem herself - or sort of.

The theme is treated mainly with a light, comedic touch that is morally ambiguous. The darker side of the plot does not work exactly because the moral corruption seems to be condemned in some cases and minimised in others.

The older characters Daniela and Claudio are beyond salvation because they're older, while Marta is an ordinary, modern good girl who loves children and has little problem with her "friend" Sonia servicing customers at home while her daughter waits in the street for mummy to "finish doing her job". No moral issue, because they're young, I guess.

Under those circumstance having one's life still to be lived sounds more like a menace, but that could be the hidden sarcasm of the title.