I can't see how In the Aisles is even a film, it doesn't go anywhere.
Joaquin Phoenix's other recent roles have been similarly empty :). With amateur performances, it's a dialogue driven workplace drama with a main character who barely speaks. So it's the other character talking and nothing happening, but day-to-day operations and a non-existent romance. I've worked in a similar setting to this and a film need not be made about that either.
90% - Critics
63% - Audience
6.9Plot summary
After the shy and reclusive Christian loses his job, he starts to work for a wholesale market. Bruno from the Beverage aisle takes him under his wing and quickly becomes a fatherly friend to him. He shows him the ropes and patiently teaches him how to operate the fork lift. In the aisles he meets "Sweets"-Marion. He is instantly smitten by her mysterious charm. The coffee machine becomes their regular meeting point and the two start to get to know each other. But Marion is married and Christian's feelings for her seem to remain unrequited, especially when Marion does not return to work one day. Christian slowly becomes a member of the wholesale market family and his days of driving fork lifts and stacking shelves mean much more to him than meets the eye.
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Menial, Trivial?
One might think working in a club warehouse stocking & stacking pallets of goods to feed the consumer market would be menial & trivial, but like all things there lies hidden complexity. To some it's a second chance; to other it's a dead end job (literally). Well acted; engaging. Notes: (a.) I liked the Delta Blues' Son House song's lyrics, "a true friend is hard to find."; "Yes, but bear this in mind." (b.) I wonder to what extent jobs be displaced by robotic cashiers, inventory takers, stackers & pullers? (c.) Sadly, for the environment, I didn't see any indication of recycling or repurposing.of anything.
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Miles and Miles of Aisles and Aisles
This was an excellent movie about the importance of comradeship and the dignity of work even in a menial job in the modern mechanized and dehumanized work space. The bonding between an steady older man and a young man with a past trying to find his place with the world was very touching. In that, it reminded me of the excellent movie 'Spring Forward' with Ned Beatty and Liev Schreiber.
The physical setting is fascinating. Our guys stock the shelves of some sort of super grocery store where there are endless aisles and the stacks of crates loom 40 feet up in the air. It's like the warehouse at the end of 'Raiders of the Lost Arc', but it's just a grocery store.
Minor note -- even when the guys dream of leaving the aisles, it's to go to other isles, like Ibiza. But I suppose that's an accident of English, not something intended by the German filmmakers.