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Laurent Cantet's Human Resources is an interesting working-class drama set in a small French town where most of the citizens are employed by one factory. Home from a Parisian college, Franck (Jalil Lespert, Sade) lands a summer internship in the factory's personnel department. His father (Jean-Claude Vallod) is proud of his son, but Franck's friends see him as a sellout.
Franck quickly finds himself in the middle of a battle between management and the union. At issue is the implementation of a 35-hour workweek, an issue vehemently despised by the union but hailed by the bosses as an end to the factory's financial troubles. In an attempt to appease both sides, Franck suggests a referendum be given directly to the factory's employees, drawing the ire of the union and their firecracker representative, Danielle Arnoux (Danielle Mélador).
Franck is caught between a rock and a hard place. He has strong ties to the blue-collar community (his dad has been a factory employee for 30 years), but at the same time, he wants to please his new bosses, and even feels a twinge of embarrassment about his working-class roots. Human Resources is about Franck's internal struggle, which is akin to Bud Fox's ordeal in Wall Street.
The only professional actor in Resources is Lespert – the rest of the cast were actual factory workers found in the town Resources used as its gloomy backdrop (it's the town upon which the sun forgot to shine). The film was co-written by Gilles Marchand, who penned the America-bound French blockbuster, Harry, He's Here to Help.
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