The world is a pretty shitty place for most people, and in Véronique Jadin’s L’Employée du Mois (Employee of The Month) an overworked and underappreciated woman stands up for herself…by murdering her boss…….and several of her coworkers. For Inès, it just seemed easier to get away with murder than get a raise, and honestly, who can blame her?
Directed from a screenplay co-written by Jadin and Nina Vanspranghe, Employee of The Month stars Jasmina Douieb as Inès the legal expert/customer service rep/quality control manager/secretary/human resources advisor at the end of her rope. Her entire company has been taking advantage of her for nearly 20 years and she’s mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore. She’s been making excuses for everyone that treats her like shit and it’s devastatingly funny to see her realize the lie she’s been living for so long.
“…a fun-filled, blood-stained romp with a bad case of The Mondays.”
The cleaning supply company she works for would fall apart without her but it isn’t until a new intern arrives that she’s able to see how poorly she’s treated day after day. Melody, played by Laetitia Mampaka, can’t understand how Inès puts up with the sexist, and just all-around awful, men of the office but Inès trudges on. That is until her boss Patrick (Peter Van den Begin) tries to assault her while she’s asking for a much-deserved raise. Through a comedy of deadly errors, Inès and Melody accidentally kill Patrick but thankfully, Inès knows the exact cleaning supplies needed to remove blood stains and, if need be, dissolve a human corpse lickity-split.
In an odd way, Employee of The Month is a coming-of-age story. It just happens to be a coming-of-middle-age story. Inès’s life gets flip-turned upside-down after her eyes are opened to the kind of life she could be living and as crushing as some of those realizations are for her, she’s finally becoming the person she wants to be. The trouble, however, is that if Inès and Melody can’t dodge their coworkers and a very nosy financial investigator while getting rid of the bodies, they’ll never be able to appreciate this newfound lease on life.
Tragically profound and dreadfully hilariously Employee of The Month is the perfect dark comedy for anyone that has ever wanted to strangle their boss with their own necktie; Mandatory watching for any woman that has sat through office meetings filled with men rolling their eyes over reports on wage gap breakdowns. In another world, Ines would be a vengeful superhero, traveling from town to town with Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin to help women get even with their overbearing micro-managers.
With a brisk runtime of only 78 minutes, Employee of The Month is a fun-filled (blood-stained) romp with a bad case of The Mondays. It yoyo’s a will-they-won’t-there scenario of getting away with murder that never feels as high stakes as you want it to but it’s also silly and sassy and jam-packed with oddball characters from start to finish. If you need to loosen your tie and blow off some steam, live vicariously through Jasmina Douieb’s Inès as lets loose and gives her workplace tormentors a taste of their own medicine.
“….never feels as high stakes as you want it to but it’s also silly and sassy and jam-packed with oddball characters from start to finish.”
Véronique Jadin’s L’Employée du Mois (Employee of The Month) celebrated it’s Canadian Premiere at the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival. Click HERE to follow our continued coverage of the festival and be sure to let us know if you’ve ever had a horrible boss you wished you could punish over on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and in the official Nightmare on Film Street Discord.
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