La vie promise

`La Vie promise' is the sad, meandering and stillborn tale of a streetwalker with a shattered brain who, in a moment of danger, flees from Nice into the country and tries in vain to return to an old lover and child and time when the life`promised' her had been much rosier. This is very far from being Isabelle Huppert's best work, simply because the journey chronicled in `La Vie Promise' is lacking in coherence and momentum. Huppert is always impressive, but the movie just isn't up to her remarkable talents and can't adequately display them. One can only assume she took on the role of Sylvia because it seemed a challenge to become a rough whore with bad hair. Her presence never ceases to be arresting, her face a glorious tacky ruin framed by bleach blond strands, white lipstick, and desperate blank stare. There are moments when one can enjoy just looking into those cold, beautiful eyes. But time passes slowly.

It's not that the other principals aren't both good. They're Maud Forget as Laurence, Sylvia's older daughter, who accompanies her – sporadically: they keep abandoning each other and then in far fetched coincidences re-connecting -- on the voyage back in search of the lost life, and Pascal Greggory as Joshua, a mysterious man with a prison past and a car theft present (why does he seem so sensitive and nice?) who chooses to accompany the two women and be their driver. Joshua too goes off, but then comes back to drive them again at the end. This is the movie's signature move: dump people, then pick them up again – if you can. There's not much hope and ultimately not much point to these people's desperate lives. The patchy, disorganized plot repeatedly destroys the energy and emotion the scenes between Sylvia, Laurence, Joshua, et al. have built up. This is a clumsily assembled story that no amount of emoting can save.

Surely the challenge for Huppert was to enter a rougher world than usual and cast off her usual hauteur and elegance, and in the early scenes indeed she's barely recognizable. But as time wears on the imperious gestures return and Huppert is Huppert again; the smallest details like the way she holds a cigarette become glamorous and confident, as in other roles – even as her character loses energy and hope and the `promise' of arriving at some kind of powerful finale gradually fades. The movie, like Huppert's mask as the damaged, desperate Sylvia, also deconstructs, because its emotional climax – the scene when Sylvia at last finds Piotr (André Marcon), the man who once loved her but now is raising their eight-year-old son with a new wife, is just a sad little moment that sits ill with the Hallmark card, David Hamilton soft focus and flower images that have characterized most of the outdoor scenery.

The irrelevant prettiness of these flower moments is as grating as the corny American songs that are periodically interjected to crudely underline some plot point. But what point? We get that Laurence has some kind of illness, but is it chronic indigestion or epilepsy? Sylvia turns out to have spent time in a sanitorium, and so we gather that she's brain damaged, which makes recognition scenes pretty much non-starters. What's wrong with her, and why she can't remember former neighbors and other people in her old life but knows Piotr and instantly bonds with the son she hasn't seen since he was two, are not questions M. Dahan is able to answer for us. Somehow the lack of a back-story doesn't make a story.

After bombarbing us with his music video special effects - hand-held and subjective camera, blackouts, voice-memories, home-movies, out of focus, fake rear-projection, and voice-overs, director Olivier Dahan has the sense in his climax to simply concentrate on the face of his leading lady, giving her no dialogue.

As Sylvie, a Nice street prostitute, Isabelle Huppert wears blonde dyed hair, blue fingernails, white eye make-up, pink lipstick, totters on high heels and pops pills. The blondeness matches Huppert's freckles, and her tartiness suggests a Euro Marilyn Monroe, with a dirty mouth. Sylvie gets laughs from the inappropriateness of her being the mother of 14 year old Laurence (Maud Forget), who suddenly appears to her mother and is involved in a death that recalls Cheryl Crane's killing of Johnny Stompanato. Together Sylvie and Laurence flee in search of Sylvie's husband Piotr (Andre Marcon) who lives in Viale.

The screenplay by Agnes Fustier-Dahan has some amusing touches, when Sylvie and Laurence are separated (though Laurence leaves Sylvie perhaps too often) and both of them get car rides from a car thief, Joshua (Pascal Greggory) at different times. Joshua and Laurence just miss spotting Sylvie, and Sylvie gets a lift from another car whose driver turns out to be a cop. Joshua is eventually used to give their triangle a conventional ending, which though could have been worse. However Laurence's bleeding seizures are never explained, other than being the result of having a prostitute for a mother. Sylvie is said to have a memory problem, and though we are never told why exactly she abandoned Piotr and their son, Yannis, her visit to a psychiatric institute suggests she went nuts and her prostitution is the best she can handle now, and of course, also her punishment. (The beating that Sylvie gets that brings about the killing from which they have to flee is evidence that her life is no Pretty Woman). Although the screenplay's use of the metaphor of a home that has burned down is clear, the ghost river that sits beside Piotr's house and the use of flowers remain somewhat obtuse.

Before the climax, Huppert has a few good moments. A look of irony when told the car driver is a cop, her reaction to meeting a nurse at the psychiatric institute who asks her about Yannis, and her heartbreaking tears when faced with the child who does not remember her.

This movie is held upright by the acting work of the main characters. Especially Isabelle Huppert exceeds herself once again, in portraying a weird persona , not the first time she achieved this. She is unsurpassable in acting out emotional developments within a story. Her meeting with her small son, she did not see for years, towards the end of the story, is gripping. It is not often cinema brings tears to me... Pascal Gregory is better than many middle of the road Hollywood actors, we see every night on TV (commercial TV in Holland at least). Our minds having been spoiled by too many cheap US products, thanks to TV, this French film is refreshing in its camera shooting. After so many road movies in the US Far West, who would believe similar shots may be made in the French "corn deserts" north of Paris? (Just get off, anywhere, from the A-1 auto route, between Paris and Lille, and see what I mean). Once again good use is made of the French richness in "patrimoine', meaning old village locations, and, as a peak, the old country farm house, the main character grew up in. What a great ruin, an ideal Parisians holiday home!! The weak points, I think at least, are mainly in the script, and casting. Sylvia's daughter, is partly miscasted, as she is the opposite to Sylvia, in looks and character. The storyline resembles a cheap love-novel sometimes, in its sentimentality. Nevertheless, a fine example of French "authors'" film making, in a natural style only the French can make.

Like a lot of contemporary French cinema, this film doesn't lack ideas, however, the execution and finished product sometimes make no sense, or illuminate the story. It's not for a lack of styles that Olivier Dahan can be blamed on what we are seeing. He has a lot of different methods about how he wants to present them, but it only adds to the confusion, as things happen unexpectedly. He never bothers to explain why they got that way.

First of all, it is very strange that Sylvia's teen age daughter, Laurence, suddenly pops up in her mother's life. Sylvia could not care less about the girl. The accidental killing of one of Sylvia's pimps, make mother and daughter flee the scene of the crime and take to the back roads of Southern France. This is a case where crime, even if involuntary, does pay. The end of the story feels false, as we watch the three principals going into the sunset. Could this trio have found the secret for happiness? Stay tuned, or better yet, smell the flowers!

The acting is fine. Isabelle Huppert shows her usual intensity and is convincing as the prostitute. Maud Forget, as the teen age daughter does her part well and Pascal Greggory, as the man that enters into both mother and daughter's lives is effective as the man who seems to bring peace between both.

In a recent interview, Dustin Hoffman (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium) was talking about his upcoming film, Last Chance Harvey. He described it as "the kind of film that has been coming out for years in France...We don't believe in middle-aged love stories." Why wait for Hoffman's film next year, when you can see the amazing Isabelle Huppert (The Piano Teacher, The Bedroom Window), who was an incredible looking 49 when she made this film.

OK, a slowly unfolding relationship between Huppert and Pascal Greggory, the same age, doesn't appeal to you. You would rather drool over Keira Knightley, Emily Blunt, Ellen Page or Megan Fox. But, to dismiss one of the truly great actresses of our time would be a mistake.

Like many, I love on-the-edge-of-your-seat action and dazzling special effects, but there are time when I just want to sit back with a special beverage and let beautiful cinematography, soothing music, and brilliant acting slowing wash over me. Olivier Dahan's (La Vie en rose, Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse) film fits the bill perfectly.