Une Vie Meilleure - A Better Life (2011)

Directed by: Cédric Kahn
Country: France

Review: “A Better Life” is a French drama directed by Cedric Kahn that follows the story of a couple, Yann (Guillaume Canet) and Nadine (Leila Bekhti), after they fell in love when met for the first time in a restaurant. After some time living together, they decide to buy a crumbling building and open their own restaurant in a convenient zone in the suburbs of Paris, since Yann had a promising talent as chef. However, their expectations will be defrauded when legal issues and consecutive loans tore them apart, forcing Yann to work in other restaurants and Nadine to accept a work proposal from Canada, leaving her nine-year-old son behind. Her extended absence will make Yann concerned with her whereabouts, and some difficult decisions will have to be taken. “A Better Life” features Guillaume Canet in the main role, also considered a respected filmmaker after “Tell No One” in 2006, and “Little White Lies” in 2010. Here he proves his talent as an actor, playing his part with great determination and devotion, ending up being awarded in Rome Film Fest. The lesson of this story is that the best intentions aren’t always sufficient to be successful, but Kahn gave a good chance on hope and immigration by simplifying in the end what its characters had complicated in the beginning. His direction was competent but not brilliant, in an actual and realistic movie that certainly works as an alert for the more ambitious, in times of economic crisis.