09/09/2026 - VENICE 2026: In a relentless gut-punch of a film, Stéphane Brizé dissects the inner workings of contemporary corporate culture, entrusting Alba Rohrwacher with a major role

Alba Rohrwacher in A Good Little Soldier

“Don’t let your emotions get the better of you.” As we’ve known since The Measure of a Man, At War and Another World, the systemic harshness of the world of work has been a favoured theme for Stéphane Brizé, but in A Good Little Soldier, which was presented in competition in the 83rd Venice Film Festival, the French filmmaker approaches the landscape which fuels his socially engaged cinema with fresh eyes. This time round, the catalyst is a female character who’s caught in the trap of willing servitude to the world of big business. Here, the demand for economic performance reigns supreme and sweeps aside any human consideration amidst a cynicism which is hypocritically disguised as virtue but which actually proves the cause of individual misery and collective alienation.

“Pressure is everywhere in life. That’s how it works.” Full of good intentions, HR manager Carla Moretti (an excellent Alba Rohrwacher) is secretly uneasy upon arriving at the insurance group Amali which is in the middle of a brainstorming session to “rebuild its employer brand” and modernise its image via an advertising campaign with upbeat slogans (“a fairer world”, “caring”, “we’re the stuff that dreams are made of”) and “happiness & sharing circle” workshops for employees. But the behind-the-scenes reality of the company’s day-to-day operations is far less rosy: “kindness, yes, but there’s also shareholders, productivity, fierce competition.” Faced with a harassment case, Carla wrestles with her moral scruples and complicated personal life (she’s divorced and, fearful of failure and swept up in the frenetic, invasive pace of her job, she does what she can to look after her young only son). Carla’s faced with a slippery slope slide which might lead to the death of her conscience…

Obliterating political correctness, the film tackles the theme of fragility, as it bends under dominant forces (“maybe that’s too much responsibility for you? ”, “you’re ruining the group dynamic”, “this pressure is their way of asking for the best”), with considerable causticity, turning the reality of duplicity in the corporate world into some sort of scathing comedy. Attuned to its protagonist’s emotional rollercoaster and buoyed by dynamic and relatively bold mise en scène (with lots of FaceTime on the intimate front and a special mention going to Bertrand Blessing’s music), the story gradually tightens until the truth emerges from the Rubik’s cube of humans working in a modern world where “virtue can be a fault if it doesn’t go hand in hand with competitiveness.” It’s a message full of hidden vices which Stéphane Brizé refuses to gloss over, in a pitiless exposé that serves as a societal mirror which some might find unsettling, but which perfectly aligns with the filmmaker’s combative intentions, because, as per the Marcus Aurelius quote which is very subtly slipped into the film: “Your life is what your thoughts make it.”

A Good Little Soldier was produced by Gaumont (who are also handling international sales) in co-production with France 3 Cinéma.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 09/09/2026: Venice 2026 - A Good Little Soldier

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Stéphane Brizé, Alba Rohrwacher, Vincent Lindon, David Talbot, Sharif Andoura
© 2026 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it