Product Description

Isabelle Huppert stars as Sylvia, a weary prostitute who suddenly makes contact with her estranged teenage daughter. Fleeing the French Mediterranean, they head north. Hounded by memory lapses and desperate not to see her daughter repeat her own mistakes, Sylvia tries to re-discover her once promising past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94713 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-02-20
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Review
As lovely as it may be to look at, La Vie Promise still delivers a psychological punch, thanks to skillful storytelling and Huppert's impressive performance. --Time Out NY

Review
Isabelle Huppert delivers another pitch-perfect performance! --Variety

Review
La Vie Promise reminds us that Isabelle Huppert is incontestably one of the very great screen actresses. --Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews

Isabelle Huppert: An Amazingly Fine Actress in a Glowing Role
LA VIE PROMISE is one of those films that begs multiple viewings: the cinematography is truly an art form here, the story though incredibly well told (written by director/ co-author Olivier Dahan with Agnès Fustier-Dahan) requires integration of the viewer's thinking to capture the interstices of understated depth of the tale, an the acting of Isabelle Huppert is simply one of the finest moment on film. Rave review? Yes, and well deserved!

Sylvia (Huppert, who has never been more beautiful before the camera) is a prostitute with an edge in Nice: she accepts her profession but acts with the elements of a seasoned streetwalker, always fully in charge of any situation. She is a woman with a past. She was once married to Piotr (Andre Marcon) in northern France (Viale) but had a nervous breakdown eight years ago concurrent with the birth of her son, the apparent reason for her fleeing to Nice. Now her teenage epileptic daughter Laurence (Maud Forget) appears, having been scattered through foster homes because her mother doesn't want her around, and Sylvia once again throws her out. But Laurence is hiding in Sylvia's flat when her pimp visits demanding money, and Laurence kills him. The mother and daughter then flee Nice afraid of the murder consequences and travel toward northern France by walking hitchhiking, bus - any means possible to avoid the police. Sylvia has decided to search for her eight-year old son and for Piotr, hoping they may afford them protection. Along the way they meet Joshua (Pascal Greggory), an escaped convict who befriends them and encourages the growing bond between mother and daughter and eventually provides their arrival at their destination. The concluding moments of the story are the stuff of great drama and should not be revealed to the viewer.

Throughout the film the integration of art photography and music enhances the mood of the story: Bach, Mendelssohn, Debussy and mixed with contemporary American blues and the mixture deserves a CD release. But the overriding star of this entire production is the radiant Isabelle Huppert, one of our finest actresses of today, in a role that, though nearly impossible to make credible, in Huppert's hands becomes a woman whose damaged psyche becomes permanently imprinted on our memories. It is a tour de force of acting of the highest caliber. Highly Recommended to lovers of Art Films. Grady Harp, July 06

Huppert shines as down-and-out prostitute


Isabelle Huppert gives a superb performance as a pill-popping prostitute in "La Vie Promise," a slice-of-life, hard luck tale set on the highways and byways of rural France. Huppert is Sylvia, a hooker in Nice with a fourteen year old daughter named Laurence, whose existence the jaded streetwalker would prefer not to acknowledge even though Sylvia does give her money on a regular basis. One night, however, Laurence forces herself into her mother's life by stabbing to death the pimp who is thrashing Sylvia to within an inch of her life for some money she owes him. The two women hop aboard a train in an effort to disappear into the countryside. One night, Laurence runs away after the two of them have an argument. Much of the film's time is devoted to the mother and daughter's search for one another, often missing each other by a mere fraction of a second. Joshua is a man whom Sylvia and Laurence meet separately on the road and who, in his strangely quiet way, becomes instrumental in reconciling - both physically and psychologically - the estranged pair.

"La Vie Promise" has a simplicity of style and a purity of vision that keep it from becoming just another tale of a down-and-out prostitute or a tired generation gap drama. Sylvia is a complex character, a hurt and lost soul trying to come to grips with the mistakes she's made and hoping to rectify at least some of those mistakes in this crucial moment of her life. Huppert does a beautiful job conveying both the emotional turmoil and the latent nobility hidden within the recesses of her wounded psyche. The screenplay doesn't try to psychoanalyze the character completely, but allows her to retain much of the mystery and ambiguity that makes her, finally, interesting to the audience. The film does less well with Laurence who really isn't allowed a whole lot of psychological development throughout the story. As a result, young Maud Forget isn't given much opportunity to display her depth and scope as an actress. Pascal Greggory's Joshua is also kept enigmatic, but in his case the ambiguity works well in the context of the story.

The film has been beautifully photographed, and Oliver Dahan's direction contains many lyrical touches that turn the film into a compelling mood piece, employing nature as a prime element in its artistry. But it is Huppert's rich and many-layered performance that brings the film to life.

Okay Isabelle Huppert Road Movie/Maternal Melodrama
This is not one of Isabelle Huppert's best movies but she's always interesting to watch and her great performance is the best thing about this movie and quite frankly the only thing that makes it watchable and worth recommending.

The film is essentially a road movie in which Sylvia, a prostitute, and Laurence, her estranged 14-year-old daughter, run away from Nice after the latter commits a crime to defend her mother. They head to find Sylvia's husband and son, which she abandoned three years before and erased from her memory. Along the way, they meet a friendly fugitive who helps them.

The cast is excellent and the scenery is pretty, though there's a heavy-handed use of flower symbolism and U.S. country songs. In short, I recommend it only for Isabelle Huppert's characteristically superb performance (thought be warned that, even though she's great, this is far from her best films).