The issues of labor and power that director Stéphane Brizé has examined in works like At War and The Measure of a Man are explored once again in A Good Little Soldier, this time through the seemingly ordinary office life of a successful career woman. Carla, the capable head of human resources at a major insurance company, is a middle manager saddled with a nearly impossible dual mandate: delivering the results demanded by executive leadership while looking after employees’ well-being and resolving workplace conflicts. She is a successful professional, distinguished not only by her ability but also by her unwavering dedication - yet her success comes at the cost of her family and personal life (in the film, Carla’s family appears only through video calls). The dilemma between loyalty to the organization and personal ethics, and the fissures in life that only widen the harder she tries to be a good person, are portrayed in an office drama that plays almost like a one-woman show carried by Alba Rohrwacher. It is a portrait of countless professional women, and it captures, with sharp precision, the face of labor in our era.
Stéphane Brizé was born in Rennes, France in 1966. After studying electronics, he entered drama school in Paris and found his way into filmmaking. Following a series of award-winning shorts from 1993 to 1996, he began his long-running collaboration with Vincent Lindon with Mademoiselle Chambon (2009), which won the César for Best Adaptation. After A Few Hours of Spring (2012), A Woman′s Life (2016) was invited to the main competition at Venice and won the Prix Louis Delluc; At War (2018) was invited to the main competition at Cannes; and Another World (2021) and Out of Season (2023) returned him to Venice′s main competition, building his own body of social drama probing the pressures of capitalism and labor. His latest film, A Good Little Soldier, marking his sixth collaboration with Vincent Lindon, had its world premiere in the main competition at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
