(In)Voluntary Retirements (2020): cast, story & where to watch

Released in 2020, (In)Voluntary Retirements is a notable film directed by Sandra Gugliotta.

What it’s about. On July 2nd, 2008, at five thirty in the afternoon, a 53-year-old man called Jean-Michel was run over by a train in Saint-Lyé, a town with a population of 3,000 located in the east of France. No one knew whether it was a suicide or an accident. The director investigates around the town, asks different inhabitants what they think of that tragedy. For many people, Jean-Michel had killed himself, after amassing too many worries and problems; the more the voiceover asks, the more mysterious it all gets. But there is a detail from Jean-Michel’s life that connects him to Argentina—he had been an employee at a phone company until a privatization left him without a job. (In)Voluntary Retirements is a documentary that shows how the kinship between Argentina’s politics in the ‘90s and France’s twenty years later damaged the lives of so many people.

How it landed. With an audience score of 10.0/10, (In)Voluntary Retirements sits among the best-reviewed titles in the catalogue.

Where to watch. Streaming options change often. See the full, country-by-country breakdown on our where to watch (In)Voluntary Retirements page.