You’d never know that Marion Cotillard is a movie star if you only know her from this fine French downer. She has neither make-up nor melodrama to work with here. It’s like she just walked in off the street. Writer/directors Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s work is similarly unadorned, with handheld camera, mundane natural night and no music score. Cotillard has only a weekend to find and talk to all twelve of her co-workers, each of whom has a vote in whether or not she keeps her job at a drab little plant (she took time off after an accident, during which time her company realized that they can do without her). Their incentive to vote against her: they all split her salary as bonus pay for the year. Meanwhile, Cotillard’s Sandra has, like most of us, little ability to sell herself. The only argument she has is that she desperately needs the job. When she stumbles upon a good line to use, she uses it over and over again. She’s embarrassed and empathetic to her co-workers. They’re all simple folk, just scraping by, with homes in need of repairs and kids. Sandra sees herself in all of them and knows that she, too, would be conflicted if the roles were reversed. That struggle makes the drama here along with a stark portrait and how sometimes people will and won’t, or just plain can’t afford to, give each other a helping hand.