FOOTNOTES: Paul Calori and Kostia Testut's musical rom-com about employment opens

If you're going to view a modern musical rom-com, and you found La La Land a little too full of narcissists hoping to make their mark on tinsel town, you might want to consider a French version in which the leading characters just want to either find a decent job or hang on to the very precarious one they've already got.

Such a movie hits one theater in New York City tomorrow and will open in a few more venues in the weeks to come. It's called FOOTNOTES (Sur quel pied danser is the French title), and if its so-so melodies will not set the world on fire, it is at least peopled with performers who can sing, dance and act reasonably well. Plus, it's got a social conscience -- and then some.

Filmmakers Paul Calori (shown at right) and Kostia Testut (below), who both wrote and directed this little trifle-with-a-mind-and-heart, have imbued their movie with a kind of careless, free-form, improvisational feel that can be quite charming from time to time. Their movie is feminist, anti-corporate, and a shoe-in for folk who love footwear.

And while the personal may indeed be political

(or is it vice-versa?), in this film the personal finally bests both the social and political. In La La Land, there's little but personal ambition and obeisance to moviedom driving the protagonists onward. Here, there is some social conscience, a bit of solidarity, feminism and anti-corporate stance, but -- perhaps to the filmmakers' credit -- individual character trumps political theory. Good theoretical Communists these two fellows would not, I think, make.

In the leading role is an actress, Pauline Etienne (above, from Eden and 2 Autumns, 3 Winters) who proves adept at everything the filmmakers demand of her (singing, acting, dancing, the works), and her co-star is an attractive, believable fellow named Samy (played by Olivier Chantreau, below, right, and most recently seen in Moka). Interestingly enough, these two, although they are the film's would-be stars and despite their attractiveness and charm, do not command the movie.

Instead it is the ensemble, the workers at the footwear factory -- as well as the villain of the piece, the corporate boss -- who are the most fun and interesting to view. In that villain role is is an actor -- Loïc Corbery (below) --  whom, I am guessing, has had some dance background, for he moves with finesse and dances with such aplomb that he pretty much dusts the floor with the rest of the ensemble.

The movie makes clear from the outset that its leading character, Julie, simply wants a job that will earn her a living wage and be "secure." Samy, has this already, and wants to hold on to it and so will do whatever that requires.  These two may not be all that admirable, but they are indeed human. So are the many workers we meet and watch agitate (as they both demonstrate and dance).

The song lyrics are pointed and (at least in the translation we get) serviceable, but the music they are set to is so similar from song to song that you may think you've regressed to Michel Legrand territory (a la The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but without even something as nice as that film's popular and pretty love song). La La Land also had not much particularly winning music, but Footnotes' songs seem even more ordinary.

Yet, given its subject matter, along with the charm of some of the nicely choreographed numbers, the film may win you over. Not only is it worthwhile to see a modern musical that's about something more than love and personal ambition (pussyfooting around instead as "dreams"), it's very good to see one that tackles subjects so important to the well-being of today's citizens. Even if, in the end, rom-com-amour triumphs over all else.

From Monument Releasing and running just 85 minutes, Footnotes, opens tomorrow, Friday, July 14, in New York City at the Village East Cinema and then at a few more theaters and cities. (Here in South Florida, the film will open on August 18 at Miami's Tower Theater.) Click here and scroll down to see currently scheduled playdates.

Argentine entry for Best Foreign Language Film, Benjamín Ávila's CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD, opens in New York

What would it be like to have been a child raised in a family of left-wing activist, guns-and-ammunition-running relatives during Argentina's 1970s right-wing military dictatorship -- which has been called the most repressive in that repression-prone country's history? Not a lot of fun, perhaps, but fascinating as hell, at least according to the very interesting, thought-provoking memoir movie based on real-life characters that opens this week. CLANDESTINE CHILDHOOD is the Argentine submission for Best Foreign-Language Film in this year's "Oscar" sweepstakes, and I would not have been surprised to see it make the shortlist.

That it didn't might just be due to the fact that the movie's politics, given the historical situation, seem pretty middle of the road. The co-writer (with Marcelo Müller) and director, Benjamín Ávila (at left) makes certain that we understand the necessity of activists rising up against a tyrannical dictatorship at the same time as he makes clear how deprived in certain ways is their child, the boy who is at the center of this relative-ly stringent movie.

The film's greatest strength -- aside from being compulsively interesting and occasionally nail-bitingly suspenseful -- is that it forces you to identify with all its major characters: those who must fight against oppression, even if it takes their own lives, leaving their children bereft (and who knows what else?); the relatives who want to help the family but are too frightened and cowed by the violence against dissidents to join in their "revolution"; and most of all, the boy himself, torn between the normal needs and desires of approaching adolescence and the need and desire to help and be part of his immediate family.

Beginning with a scene that combines live-action with a kind of classy, children's-book/comic book-style animation, the movie takes us into the mind-set and world of its hero, young Juan (played with exactly the right combination of intensity, fear and childlike understanding by first-time actor Teo Gutiérrez Romero, shown above center, with mom and dad), who will soon be living under the alias of Ernesto, with a fake passport, birth date, birth place, history -- the works.

One important question the movie asks (and without ever out-and-out mentioning it) is this: What kind of children-to-adults do active revolutionaries raise? In one pivotal scene the boy's uncle (a charismatic performance from Ernesto Alterio, above, right) and father argue over the birthday party for the boy soon to take place here at "home" with all his school mates. Does the revolution halt for this event, or is the party merely a wasteful pastime?

Another terrific scene takes place between the boy's grandmother (Cristina Banegas), and the rest of his immediate family, partic-ularly his mother (a rich, multi-layered perfor-mance from Natalia Oreiro, at left, with gun, and 3 photos above), about the child's well-being. There is no "answer" to these questions, only despair, anger and maybe, just a little, hope. The movie is based upon real-life characters; how truthful to the actual characters the film is, I have no idea. But as an entertaining, thought-provoking movie, Clandestine Childhood hits the proverbial nail dead center, with its shock waves manifesting still.

The film, released here in the USA via Film Movement and running 110 minutes, opens this Friday in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza and the Quad cinemas. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates around the U.S.

Hawkins, Ivory, Cole and a fine ensemble make MADE IN DAGENHAM arthouse fun

With Saving Grace, Calendar Girls and now MADE IN DAGENHAM, director Nigel Cole proves that, with decent writing and a good cast, he can give us smart, topical, mainstream movies that will fill up American art cinemas -- at least for a week or two -- after which they will find their way to healthy ancillary profits. Cole's work gets better, film after film, and Dagenham is his best yet. This is a movie with a message that could hardly be more timely. It takes us back to pre-Thatcher England, when the Brits -- aw, screw it: the entire western world -- had a firmer grip on the difference between right and wrong, truth and lies, fair and unfair.

Cole, shown at left, and his team -- including William Ivory (writer, mostly television), Sally Hawkins (star) and an exceptionally fine ensemble, each of whom captures his/her character in delightful and very specific fashion -- take an important piece of labor (and Labour Party) history and turn it into rabble-rousing (if sometimes a tad too convenient) life. What happened in Dagenham, the location of the British Ford plant, when its women workers wanted to be recognized as "skilled labor" who should earn something approaching the wages paid to men is the subject of the film, and it could hardly be more timely in many ways. The importance of unions -- when they actually serve the workers who fund them -- is something western nations need to remember just now, and the film offers up this message with surprise and sass.

Screenwriter Ivory does a nice job of blending together several stories of these workers and their union rep (a wonderfully funny and moving Bob Hoskins, shown above, center), and he, together with the ace performers turns each of the characters into specific and very winning individuals.  (Hoskins' speech about his mom is a memorable marvel.)

Ms Hawkins, above, has her best role since Happy Go Lucky, and she makes the most of it: a relatively happy wife in a relatively typical marriage of that time period (the 1960s) who is thrust into the job of union representative and finds herself taking to it with relish and more. Hawkins combines humor, intelligence and vulner-ability with a strength that seems to come from deep within and which she can tap when needed -- but not without some pain.  She has pretty much cornered the market for this brand of pretty, plucky womanhood, and Dagenham gives her another chance to shine.

In the supporting roles are a number wonderful actresses, new and old: Geraldine James (shown center, above, with Hoskins and Hawkins) brings complexity and grace to her role of the older union rep, while Andrea Riseborough (below) is funny and frank as the most "out-there" of the younger women.

Jamie Winstone (below) is sweet and winning as a Ford worker who want to model (and unfortunately gets her chance), while Rosamund Pike (two photos down, with dish) brings her elegance and class to one of the movie's most interesting roles: the wife of one of the Ford factory bosses.

Ivory's script captures various views of the women's strike and what this does to the local town, and to its menfolk, suddenly out of work. He shows the toll taken on the individual women -- James and Hawkins, in particular -- as their own husbands begin to fall away from the "cause,"  one haltingly, the other permanently. And he gives an interesting look at a corrupted union man who consistently sells out his constituency to the factory owners.

It's in the character of one British woman, however, that the film finds much of its fun and satire: the new Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity, one Barbara Castle, played by Miranda Richardson in one of her rare, delightful modes (below, left: seen from back, with big bouffant).  She, among all the politi-cians and government employees shown, is the only one who seems to possess brains and gumption, and in fact might have you thinking of what Margaret Thatcher could have accomplished for Britain and its people had she been in the least humane or progressive.

Made in Dagenham is certainly a feel-good movie -- legitimately so, because of what these women accomplished and how the film gives them their due.  If it cuts a few corners and compresses time, events and characters, it still shows us the black, the white and the gray with humor and smarts.  It should leave you, first, walking on air as you rejoice in the outcome and the progress that was made a few decades back -- and then plummeting to earth when you wonder what the hell happened to it all, as greed, wealth and right-wing power conspire to further erode government, democracy and any decent standard of living.

The movie, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens Friday, November 19, in New York City and Los Angeles -- and elsewhere soon.