A Better Life

(2011)

★ 6.3 IMDb · 126 votes

Genres: Drama

Year: 2011

Runtime: 110 мин

Country: France

Director: Cédric Kahn

Cast: Гийом Кане, Лейла Бехти, Slimane Khettabi, Abraham Belaga, Nicolas Abraham, Франсуа Фавр, Brigitte Sy

Plot

Yann, a cook, and Nadia, a waitress and mother of 9-year-old child, decide to risk everything on the purchase of a restaurant. With plenty of talent, energy, love and dreams, but no finance of their own, they find themselves forced into a jungle of financing and bank loans that quickly overwhelms them. To bail them out, Nadia has to take a job in Canada, while Yann is forced to stay behind to save the restaurant. Together, he and the child confront a relentless avalanche of creditors, an uncaring system and the daily grind from which there is no respite… Yann finally understands that his only chance of salvation lies in joining his lover – as well as reuniting mother and child – by following Nadia to Canada and a better life.

Yann (Guillaume Canet) and Nadia (Leïla Bekhti) fall in love. Nadia has acquired a crumbling building in a Paris suburb and the couple decide to renovate it to launch a restaurant. But things turn upside down, high financing costs make things difficult, and Nadia, has to accept a temporary work opportunity in Montreal to pitch in with extra money. She has to leave her son Slimane (Slimane Khettabi) to Yann. Things get even worse when Nadia disappears without a trace.[1] Yann has to sell the building at a low price, not enough to pay all his debts, and has to move with Slimane from his nearby caravan to an unattractive room, which he rents from the buyer. He robs the man and travels with Slimane to Canada. He finds Nadia, she is in custody. He comes to the prison but at first she refuses to accept the visit. The next day she allows him to visit her but to Slimane's regret she refuses to see him, out of shame. She is there for drug possession, but she is innocent. The next time she allows Yann to visit her with Slimane.