Human Resources, the first feature length film from Laurent Cantet, is a film more akin to a British tradition of social-realism than the cinematic traditions from the directors native France, and with its concerns for how political decisions impact upon the everyday lives of ordinary people it may well be likened to the work of Ken Loach; but by not being so overtly polemical as some of Loach's latter work, Cantet has created a film far more affecting in the human drama he presents.

The premise of Cantet's film, like a number of Ken Loach films, attaches itself to a real and, at the time, current political change affecting the working-class: ahead of the controversial introduction of the 35-hour working week - the rationale of which, besides enhancing the quality of French life by creating more leisure time, was to reduce unemployment by lowering the number of hours each person could work and thereby requiring firms to hire more employees in a division of labour - Franck, a young college undergraduate played by Jalil Lespert, returns from studying in Paris to the humble town of his upbringing to undertake an internship in the Human Resources department at the factory where his father has been employed for the past three decades in the same monotonous job on the factory floor.

Franck, full with youthful idealism, an education equal to the management and a loyalty to his working-class upbringing, is convinced that he can bridge the differences which have arisen between the management and the workers over the new legislation regarding working hours; and in earnest, and with tireless enthusiasm, he approaches the task determined to prove successful. It is only when he discovers that his efforts are being manipulated by the management to serve their duplicitous plan to restructure the company and fire several of the workers, Franck's father included, that he begins to realise that the reality of the world does not fit easily with his ideals.

The soul of the film, however, lies beyond this premise in the very real and very human drama of the relationship between Franck and his father, and rightfully this relationship becomes the main focus of the film because it is here, in the conflict between generations, the conflict that arises from a son who has received a higher education than his parents, an education which gives the son a higher ambition and a wider perspective on the way society runs, that the film becomes compelling and at times truly poignant.

It's the films sense of authenticity which drives much of its impact on the viewer, and Cantet serves the realism of the film with an aesthetic that makes it feel somewhat documentary-like. Among the cast, only Jalil Lespert is a professional actor; the rest of the cast is comprised of people from the area in which the film was shot and there's an impression, which further serves the sense of authenticity, that the lives of the characters do not depart too far from the real lives of the people that play them.

None, however, are played with more nuance and vulnerability than Jean-Claude Vallod in the role of Franck's father, and who, in his real life much like the life of his character, was a factory worker from the age of fourteen. The vulnerability he portrays is never more evident than in the confrontation which ensues between father and son towards the end of the film, when Franck - seemingly driven to the end of his tether with his frustrations and his unrealised ambitions - furiously airs some long-repressed thoughts about his father, about the subservient life he perceives his father to lead without any desire to fight the injustices done against him, and Vallod's restrained reaction is at once believable and moving. A professional actor, who has spent his life in the profession, could not have played it any better.

In Human Resources Laurent Cantet has created an affecting and thought-provoking film; and by presenting the differences and conflicts, whether they be the wider political and class divisions, or the more intimate and personal divisions between a father and a son, with unfailing objectivity, his film becomes all the more affecting. We care about these characters because we can believe they are real people, neither faultlessly infallible nor entirely fallible beyond redemption; each are simply trying to do the best they can in the way they think best. But life, in all its complexity, can be as difficult as it can be unfair, and Laurent Cantet doesn't attempt to flatter the viewer by deceiving us of this very real truth.