Lea starts a job as a cashier in a big supermarket chain. During the adaptation and learning process, and under a layer of apparent normalcy, she is gradually confronted with the insensitivity to which her coworkers, all women, are subject in the name of efficiency and productivity. The stylization and artificiality of the film’s setting create an aseptic environment that collaborates in the transformation of these women into mere automata, deprived of their individuality and of a personal life. The mechanization of procedures and interactions is set to the rhythm of the soundtrack. “L’éffort commercial" is based on true stories of women whose vulnerability is explored by employers, in a time when labor flexibility and insecurity, as well as unemployment, are a concrete threat. The emotion in the final scene is shared by all viewers, in face of such inhumanity. The short marks French-Italian filmmaker Sarah Arnold’s debut at Curtas Vila do Conde. (IR)