'The Gig Is Up' Review: The Perils of Platform Work, Personified
'The Gig Is Up' Review: The Perils of Platform Work, Personified
A spry, engaging doc with more breadth than depth in its examination of the effects of the exploding gig economy on gig workers worldwide.
Jessica Kiang, provided by
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Director: Shannon Walsh
With: Al Aloudi, Nick Srnicek, Derek Thompson, Leila Ouadad, Jason Edwards, Mary L Gray, Mitchell Amewieye, Emeka Okoye, Tomisin Adeshiyan, Prayag Narula, Annette Rivero. (English, French, Chinese dialogue)
Running time: Running time: 89 MIN.
Courtesy of Dogwoof
Californian Uber driver Annette breaks down in tears at the wheel of the car she can scarcely afford to fill with gas. In Lagos, Mitchell rarely sleeps through the night for fear of missing out on one of the more lucrative online tasks listed on Mechanical Turk. In Paris, Leila tries to wrangle backpay for a fellow Deliveroo rider who was grievously injured on the job. These and dozens of other stories are the bite-sized examples of the everyday cruelty and dehumanization of the gig economy, the ever-expanding system of global capitalist exploitation that Shannon Walsh’s almost paradoxically fresh-faced and accessible documentary “The Gig Is Up” aims to highlight.