Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A Better Life was a reasonable foreign drama, carried mostly by Guillaume Canet.I didn't really care for all the restaurant stuff, when the Nadia character was no longer present in the film it really picked up for me. There were two moments that I found to be of real quality. One was when Yann takes Slimane back to return the shoes he stole, Yann pays for doing the right thing and makes Slimane do laps with the shoes he wanted to steal so badly, the tension was tremendous. The other moment was when Yann decides to take action following the crooked men and the pulsating moment in which he strikes and then makes a run for it.

Oddly ,this movie begins like Duvivier's 1936 classic "La Belle Equipe" at a time when people were dreaming of a better future;in 2011,they are still dreaming.A couple (in Duvivier"s movie ,it was a bunch of buddies) buys a restaurant by a lake ,soon to be confronted with insurmountable difficulties , the infernal indebtedness spiral-one of the subjects of the contemporary "Toutes Nos Envies" by Philippe Lioret-.the originality of Khan's movie is the reversal of the sexes:it's the man who is left alone with his lover's little brat and who has to cope with a ruthless world .Guillaume Canet is as good as ever in a part à la "Kramer vs Kramer" (but a hero who has to live in a much more modest milieu)and his young co-star is up to scratch ,without showing off;sometimes ,with his hope against hope,Canet's character recalls those of Frank Borzage ,who gave all they had for something better that did not seem to happen.SPOILER: the last sequence really makes the viewer happy ,after all these trials ;and without being really a happy end it lets some sunlight break through .The better future might still be at hand after all.

Just saw this last night at the Seattle International Film Festival. None of the 4 of us knew much about it and we all enjoyed it immensely.Refreshingly bleak slice of life about folks on the slippery slope of life's troubles.Fantastic performances, particularly from the lead actor. I will certainly check out more of his work.The scenes with his young co-star are lovely, showing the best of a chosen family, even in the most desperate of times.I loved the time and space the director allowed for quiet character compositions.

Yann Laurent (brilliant performance by Guillaume Canet at his best) is working as a cook in a catering facility and aspires to get a better job as a chef in a restaurant. He meets Nadia, a young waitress, single mother of a 9.5 years old boy named Slimane. They fall in love; then during a day off near a lake, they encounter a closed mansion. With not much preparation, and lack of cash, they buy the place in the aim of opening their restaurant. What begins as a dram will turn out as a nightmare. After works being made to fix the place, authorities do not allow the opening for non compliance to regulations. The downward spiral begins, as they lied to the bank to get the loan (their initial cash was actually borrowed with high interest rates in many loans different companies). Nadia is offered by her boss to go work abroad in Canada. Shes asks Yann to keep her son for a supposedly short period of time, the time she sorts things out. But the situation for all characters seems to get worse and worse on the material level... Slimane's mother left, but he might have found a father... Overall, a film of quality, quite sad, but full of life. The harshness of times of crisis, when the poor people get desperate.