And we would above all have banged and banged the drum about youth unemployment, so that -- if nothing else -- the hard-hit cohort of 20-somethings would know that somebody in Washington gave a damn about them.

CNN: Who cares about the young and jobless?

Assayas is a virtuoso with the camera, and he may have something serious to say about the brutal impersonality of global capitalism, yet the characters jump around so much, and shift alliances so rapidly, that you wind up not giving a damn about any of them.

NEWYORKER: Boarding Gate