Job-hunting is nobody’s idea of a good time. It might seem like rather dour subject matter for a film, but it’s deftly handled in Claudine Bories and Patrice Chagnard’s observational documentary, Rules Of The Game. This tender and insightful film centres its (in)action at a branch of Ingeus, an employment consultancy firm in northern France. Here, disenfranchised youth are forced into an uneasy alliance with mentors who are trying to get them into the job market in a difficult climate.
The footage is divided into chapters that mimic classic children’s books (e.g. ‘Kevin rebels, Lolita is going to snap’) and offer a clue to the next stage of development for the handful of marginalised teens that the film focuses on. There’s a sly humour that undercuts the dreary interactions, as Ingeus employees attempt to apply rules and regulations to young adults who have never had to follow them up until now.
Forever drinking hot chocolate out of a trio of plastic cups and slumped over her oversized bag, stony-faced Lolita steals the show. She describes herself as frank, which comes off as something of an understatement when she casually reveals she’s stabbed someone she didn’t like in the eye with a compass. Others struggle to sell themselves and are unable to disguise their apathy. Even when jobs are sourced, the eventual outcome is hardly a happy ending.
These group of battlers have clearly not led easy lives but their past is not explored in depth. Lolita mentions she was scarred by something that happened that ten years ago, and the mentor doesn’t probe into this – her role is as a job-seeking mentor, not a psychologist. While it’s frustrating to only scratch the surface of these deeper issues, it’s only right that the viewer too is forced to play the rules of the game.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
