LA VIE PROMISE aka THE PROMISED LIFE

Year: 2002
USA: Empire Pictures
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory, Maud Forget, Fabienne Babe, Andre Marcon, Elisabeth Commelin, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Diana Jones, Edith Lemerdy, Cylia Malki, Remy Roubakha, Janine Souchon
Director: Olivier Dahan
Country: France
Language: French (with English subtitles)
USA: 89 mins
USA Release Date: 16 April 2004 (Limited Release - Los Angeles)
USA Release Date: 5 March 2004 (Limited Release - New York)

(in French)
US Distributor

Synopsis

Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) is a prostitute in Nice, with a self-protective talent for blocking out huge chunks of her past. When her 14 year-old daughter, Laurence (Maud Forget), skips out on foster care to see her biological mom, Sylvia snubs her.

However when Laurence unfortunately ends up stabbing a pimp in Sylvia's apartment, estranged mother and daughter beat a hasty retreat heading north via train and bus. Through the kindness of strangers they are reunited with the husband and 8 year-old son Sylvia left behind after the boy's birth landed her in a psychiatric hospital.

LA VIE PROMISE follows Sylvia's heartbreaking and perhaps impossible goal of trying to put all the things that have come apart in her life back together again.