Let the Sunshine InMovies like Let the Sunshine In
- Key Features:
- Existentialism, Romantic relationships, Self-discovery, Parisian setting, Divorce, Midlife crisis, Female protagonist, Yearning, Introspection, Desire, Infidelity, Artistic expression, Emotional vulnerability
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Art house enthusiasts, Intellectual viewers, Relationship drama aficionados, European cinema fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Disillusionment
Let the Sunshine In

Isabelle, Parisian artist, divorced mother, is looking for love, true love, at last.
Let the Sunshine In
A woman at the age of 50 moves back in with her parents after her husband leave her for a younger woman.

While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.

Bright days ahead? Caroline has retired, at last. A new life lies before her: time to take care of her children, her husband, and, most of all, herself. However, she soon comes to realize that this new freedom is synonymous with boredom and idleness. Especially when she receives a membership to her neighborhood’s senior club as a birthday present… Reluctant at first, she nevertheless decides to take the plunge. Oddly enough, she meets great people there, starting with the young computer science teacher, who is far from insensitive to her charms. Caroline gradually takes control of her life again and lives a second youth: taking a new lover, living new experiences, breaking the rules, not doing what’s expected of her… Who said that retirement was the beginning of the end and not a new beginning?

When the fun loving Marie sets her eyes on brooding comic book artist Paul, it sets off the kind of romantic sparks that quickly culminate in the bedroom. But the next morning brings its share of surprises as Marie crawls out of bed to discover her life flash-forwarded fifteen years down the road: Not only has she been married to Paul all this time, but she’s now the mother of a little boy the head of a powerful multinational investment firm and the proprietor of a fabulous apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Quickly Marie discovers that all her achievements have not brought happiness.

After getting dumped on Christmas Eve, Angela must rebuild her life surrounded by her rebellious teenager, her tyrannical mother, her hysterical best friend, and a weird psychologist.

Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

An attention-craving mother nearing 50, unemployed and living with her pregnant daughter and son-in-law, suddenly finds herself with child, too...

Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece, Pauline, on a vacation to Granville. There, she meets an old love...

A young woman struggling to stay on top of everything in her life meets a married publisher and begins an affair with him.

After the death of a septuagenarian woman, her three children deliberate over what to do with her estate.

Two divorced fathers Mathias and Antoine, decide to raise their children together in London. Their lives consist of Sophie the pretty florist secretly in love with Antoine, Yvonne who runs the 'bistrot français' and has a very maternal outlook on life and Mac Enzie, the boss of Antoine's agency who is completley in love with Yvonne despite the big age difference.

On this beautiful, bright first day of summer, Claire Darling has decided to get rid of all her estate. She’s laid down all her favourite objects on her front lawn for one splendid garage sale. As a horde of curious bystanders and neighbors fights over the ridiculously underpriced antiques, each object resurrects flashes of Claire Darling’s tragic and flamboyant life. Alerted by her childhood friends, Marie Darling, Claire’s estranged daughter, is forced to come back to the family mansion to stop this sale and unveil the reasons behind her mother’s eccentric decision.

Ariane, a young French violinist, accepts the marriage proposal of Christen, an irresistible conductor. Only problem: she's a little bit ... married! Separated for two years with Nino, an Italian teacher with a strong character, she manages to convince him to follow her to Paris to divorce in 8 days flat. But their trip in the city of love looks much more eventful than expected...

Elegant, retired architect Shauna (70) crosses paths with Pierre, a happily married doctor in his 40s, who first made an impression on her in a brief meeting 15 years previously. Both are quite troubled to meet again and begin an affair. While Pierre’s family life is soon turned upside down, Shauna struggles with feelings she thought belonged to the past.

Feeling suffocated by a possessive boyfriend, work and suburban life, a young woman starts spending the weekends in her Paris apartment in order to reclaim some of her lost freedom.

A middle-aged woman leaves her partner and drifts back to her ex-husband, while the lives of her middle class friends intersect with her own.

Jérémie, a young man reaching a breaking point on all fronts, decides to leave behind Paris and return to Limosin, to the home of his intrusive mother.

A young husband and father, perfectly content with his life, falls in love with another woman.

A working woman, mother a three children, realizes that, when her youngest one is about to go to Canada to continue her education, she will end up out of her most precious goal, being a mother.

Nina is a young, carefree actress who arrives in Paris searching for her big break. There, she finds drama both on- and offstage as she becomes involved with three men: a mild-mannered real-estate agent who offers her stability, a bad-boy actor who lives dangerously on the edge, and an intense theater director who casts her in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.” As opening night approaches, the emotional extremes of Nina’s love life fuel her art.

Two seemingly happily married French couples are forced to contend with a number of issues.

Objectively, Odette Toulemonde has nothing to be happy about, but is. Balthazar Balsan has everything to be happy about, but isn’t. Odette, awkwardly forty, with a delightful hairdresser son and a daughter bogged down in adolescence, spends her days behind the cosmetic’s counter in a department store and her nights sewing feathers on costumes for Parisian variety shows. She dreams of thanking Balthazar Balsan, her favorite author, to whom – she believes – she owes her optimism. The rich and charming Parisian writer then turns up in her life in an unexpected way.

A large and beautiful property on the French Riviera. A place that seems out of time and sheltered from the rest of the world. Anna goes there with her daughter for a few days of vacation. Amidst her family, friends and the house staff, Anna has to handle her fresh break-up with her partner and the writing of her next film.

Juliette goes back in her hometown to spend some time with her family. She finds herself between a loving but moody father, a New Age mother, a sister in the midst of an existential crisis, and a grandmother slowly losing her mind. Buried memories and family secrets rise to the surface in this sweet, tender and sometimes extravagant family portrait.

Gabriell is a single mother, her 17-year-old daughter Claire is pregnant, however the child's father Simon has no desire to be involved with his future baby. When Gabrielle takes matters into her own hands and asks Simon's father Ange for help, an unexpected relationship begins.

Arthur is invited to a New Year's Eve party to celebrate the year 2000. His girlfriend Lucie would like a baby from him but he refuses. Through the ceiling of the toilets, he discovers a passage leading to this futurist Paris. There, he meets an old man Ako who affirms he is his son and that he wants to exist. Otherwise he will vanish into the air. Arthur is still hesitant because his life is an unfulfilled one: a has a little lucrative job, is uncertain about his future and things are getting out of hand when Ako discovers the passage and interferes in the party.

From Paris in the 1960s to London in the first decade of the third millennium, Madeleine and her daughter Véra flit from one amorous adventure to the next, living for the moment and taking all the opportunities that life offers. But not every love affair is without its consequences, its upsets and its disappointments. As time goes by and gnaws away at one’s deepest feelings, love becomes a harder game to play.

Two years have passed. After missing their separation, the Leroy seem perfectly successful in their divorce. But the appearance of two new lovers in the life of Vincent and Florence will set fire to the powders. The match between the former spouses resumes.

A dying woman is fighting to choose a new family to keep her four children together, after she's gone.

After a bad breakup, a college-aged Parisian moves into her father's flat only to discover that he is living with his new girlfriend - a young woman her age.

After 20 years of marriage, Maria decides to leave her husband. She moves into room 212 at the hotel across the street, with a bird’s-eye view of her apartment, her husband and the life she shared with him. While she wonders if she made the right decision, many of the people in her life offer their opinions on the matter. They intend to let her know, whether she likes it or not, on what proves to be a life-changing evening.

A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

At 40, Stephanie loses her job and is forced to move back in with her mother. She is welcomed with open arms to the joys of overheated apartment, Francis Cabrel playing on loop, Scrabble games and precious motherly advice on how to behave at the table and live her life.

Agathe Villanova is a self-centered, workaholic feminist politician who, upon reluctantly returning to her home in the south of France to sort out her mother's affairs, runs for a local election. Upon her arrival, Agathe grudgingly agrees to take part in a documentary being made by the blundering duo of Karim, an aspiring filmmaker, and self-professed "reporter" Michel, on the subject of "successful women." As Agathe's life hilariously unravels, the camera is there to capture it all.

After his father's death, a young man is introduced to a world of hedonism and depravity by his amoral mother.

Marilou and Philippe prepare for their future retirement in Portugal. But their daughter separates and a whole procession of solicitations falls on them.

After 5 years of marriage, Ben is still madly in love. Until the day he discovers in public that his wife is cheating on him: humiliated and dumped in the process.

Alain, a successful Parisian publisher struggling to adapt to the digital revolution, has major doubts about the new manuscript of Léonard, one of his long-time authors — another work of auto-fiction recycling his love affair with a minor celebrity. Selena, Alain’s wife, a famous stage actress, is of the opposite opinion.

Claire is a midwife and has devoted her life to others. At a moment when she is preoccupied by the imminent closure of the maternity clinic where she works, her life is further turned upside down when Béatrice, her father's former mistress, turns up on the scene. Béatrice is a capricious and selfish woman, Claire's exact opposite.

A grandmother has a passionate affair with a man half her age, who is also sleeping with her daughter.

Jeannette is a single mother living in a working-class community in Marseilles; she tries to support herself and her two kids on her salary as a check-out girl at a supermarket and lives in an apartment complex where everyone is thrown into close proximity with everyone else. Marius is working as a security guard at a cement factory that has gone out of business; he's also squatting in the building, since the plant is soon to be demolished and he'll be needing his money later on. One day, Jeannette happens by the factory, and spotting several cans of paint, tries to take two of them home with her. Marius spots her and tries to chase her away, while she rails at him with curses against the capitalist system. The next day, an apologetic Marius appears at her doorstep, cans of paint in hand; the two soon become friendly, and a romance begins to bloom, though it quickly becomes obvious that Jeannette's romance novel fantasies are a bit off the mark from what Marius has in mind.

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.

At 40, Molina is the most famous radio host in France: she hosts a nightly call-in show where she answers questions from callers with sexual and emotional problems. When she decides to look for her mother whom she never knew, she discovers her living in the suburbs.

Pierre, a professional dancer, suffers from a serious heart disease. While he is waiting for a transplant which may (or may not) save his life, he has nothing better to do than look at the people around him, from the balcony of his Paris apartment.

Is love compatible with coupledom? And what of freedom and fidelity? These are some of the questions facing two married men.

A single mother and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in this off-beat dramatic comedy. In order to raise the tuition to send her young son to private school the mom starts an unusual business – a biohazard removal/crime scene clean-up service.

While dining out with friends, Sy suggests the difficulty of separating comedy from tragedy. To illustrate his point, he tells his guests two parallel stories about Melinda ; both versions have the same basic elements, but one take on her state of affairs leans toward levity, while the other is full of anguish. Each story involves Melinda coping with a recent divorce through substance abuse while beginning a romantic relationship with a close friend's husband.

Pierre, a successful 33-year-old florist, has his life turned upside down by the sudden arrival of his mother Judith, whom he hasn’t seen for two years. Mercurial and extravagant, she suffers from bipolar disorder and has recently escaped from a clinic. Pierre has only one idea in mind: bring her back as quickly as possible so his life can get back on track. But nothing happens as he hoped for. Their unexpected reunion, as funny and explosive as it is heart-wrenching, will transform Pierre and Judith forever.

Vincent, 18 years old, is dumped by Elina. It is his first love, it is the end of the world! His parents decide to take matters into their own hands and will try everything to make him forget this girl: he will have to follow them in a loving detoxification of which they will imagine the program ...

If Paris is the city of lovers, it is also that ... ex! Antoine does not dare to commit, Didier regrets his ex-wife, Father Laurent must celebrate the marriage of his ex, Julie, Serge is harassed by Lise, the ex of his girlfriend of the moment, while Greg consoles With the dog ... of his ex! So many characters whose lives will be telescoped in a joyful disorder and who could fall back in love! But of whom? Whether they obsessed us or loved to hate them, deep down, it is difficult to forget their ex!

Olivier Assayas, Gus Van Sant, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuaron are among the 20 distinguished directors who contribute to this collection of 18 stories, each exploring a different aspect of Parisian life. The colourful characters in this drama include a pair of mimes, a husband trying to chose between his wife and his lover, and a married man who turns to a prostitute for advice.

Victor, a disillusioned 60-something whose marriage is on the rocks, opts to relive the week of his life when, 40 years earlier, he met his true love through a company that allows customers to return to the time period of their choosing.

Forbach, East of France, today. Mario, a man without much ambition, except where love is concerned, is back to square one after his wife left home. He now must raise his two adolescent daughters by himself, while going through some sort of a teenage crisis of his own. 14-year-old Frida blames her father for their mother's leaving and she develops ambivalent feelings towards her new girlfriend. 17-year-old Niki will soon leave home. Until then, she lives the good life. Mario can't help but lose the women he loves. Yet they must all agree to let one another go.

An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.

Jacqueline is a young mother living in 1960s Paris with her disabled son Laurent. Abandoned by her husband, Jacqueline sacrifices everything to care for her son and vows to give Laurent a “normal” life full of happiness. Antoine, is a successful DJ in present day Montreal who seems to have it all: a thriving career, two beautiful daughters, partner Rose, with whom he is passionately in love. However, nothing is perfect and Antoine’s ex-wife Carole remains devastated by their recent separation.

Eva is a divorced soon-to-be empty-nester wondering about her next act. Then she meets Marianne, the embodiment of her perfect self. Armed with a restored outlook on being middle-aged and single, Eva decides to take a chance on her new love interest Albert — a sweet, funny and like-minded man. But things get complicated when Eva discovers that Albert is in fact the dreaded ex–husband of Marianne...

Sabine vows to give up married lovers, and is determined to find a good husband. Her best friend Clarisse introduces her to her cousin Edmond, a busy lawyer from Paris. Sabine pursues Edmond, with the encouragement of Clarisse, but Edmond does not seem very interested.

“My plan was to die before the money ran out,” says 60-year-old penniless Manhattan socialite Frances Price, but things didn’t go as planned. Her husband Franklin has been dead for 12 years and with his vast inheritance gone, she cashes in the last of her possessions and resolves to live out her twilight days anonymously in a borrowed apartment in Paris, accompanied by her directionless son Malcolm and a cat named Small Frank—who may or may not embody the spirit of Frances’s dead husband.

Odile is a business executive looking for a new, bigger apartment. Her younger sister Camille has just completed her doctoral thesis in history and is a Paris tour guide. Simon is a regular on Camille's tours because he's attracted to her. Camille has fallen for Marc, and they begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris.

Alice, a perfect wife and mother, lives happily with her husband and child until the day she discovers he is living a double life that has ruined her financially and left her a single mother. Alice fights back and dives into a world beyond anything she has ever known.

Xavier is a 40-year-old father of two who still finds life very complicated. When the mother of his children moves to New York, he can't bear them growing up far away from him and so he decides to move there as well.

A son in denial of a serious illness. A mother facing the unbearable. And between them a doctor fighting to do his job and bring them to acceptance. The three of them have one year and four seasons to come together and understand what it means to die while living.

A shallow, provincial wife finds her relationship with her preoccupied husband strained by romantic notions, leading her further towards Paris and the country wilderness.

A widower and his daughter witness the retirement of a colleague of his and the closing of her department at her university.

Laura is still waiting for Prince Charming at the age of 24. So when Sandro appears at a party, exactly like her Prince would in her dreams, she thinks she's found the right one. But then again, when she meets Maxime, Laura starts to wonder if some Princes could be more charming than others? Of course Sandro has problems of his own : his father, Pierre, just bumped into Madam Irma at his father's funeral and this reminded him of the date of his own death which Madame Irma had predicted ages ago. Now Pierre is unable to make any plans, not with his new partner Eleonore, nor with Sandro. And Maxime has his own problems, and so does Eleonore, Marianne, Jacqueline and many others. But don't worry, in the end, they'll all live happily ever after.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

Fabienne is a star; a star of French cinema. She reigns amongst men who love and admire her. When she publishes her memoirs, her daughter Lumir returns from New York to Paris with her husband and young child. The reunion between mother and daughter will quickly turn to confrontation: truths will be told, accounts settled, loves and resentments confessed.

A story about 11 girls living in Paris. Each of them has its own problems: career, love life, children. Every girl has their complexes and virtues. They always look elegant, hiding their inner feelings. Will they reach all the goals and overcome all their difficulties?

Florence wants to introduce David, the man she’s madly in love with, to her father Guillaume. But David isn’t attracted to Florence and wants to throw her into the arms of his friend Willy. The four characters meet in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Since his wife's death, Andrew Blake is depressed. In an ultimate impetus, he leaves London to go back to France, in the house he met her. This journey through happy days memories won't go as planned.

An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.

With a father suffering from neurodegenerative disease, a young woman lives with her eight-year-old daughter. While struggling to secure a decent nursing home, she runs into an unavailable friend with whom she embarks on an affair.

A restless photographer leaves her family to "find herself" and takes up deep-sea diving.

A veteran actress comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career 20 years earlier.

Fed up with her present lifestyle, and more particularly sexually unsatisfied by her boyfriend Fred, Sandrine decides to find a new way in life. Intrigued by her friend Sophie, who tells her about her sexual experimentations, she will find, through various encounters, new pleasures and new experiences, whether physical or spiritual.

Set against Paris' oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, while it was closed for repairs, this film is a love story between two young vagrants: Alex, a would be circus performer addicted to alcohol and sedatives and Michele, a painter driven to a life on the streets because of a failed relationship and an affliction which is slowly turning her blind.

Several interconnected chapters follow a variety of Parisian couples navigating love, desire, and relationships. Isabelle, frustrated by a year of celibacy, rejects her friend Zoé’s offer to "borrow" her husband and instead impersonates their mutual friend Amélie, who cannot bring herself to sleep with her close friend Boris. Meanwhile, the lonely Achille is stunned when his alluring new neighbor appears at his door in a negligee, proposing an affair. Elsewhere, middle-aged Emmanuelle struggles with an overwhelming attraction to every handsome man she encounters, threatening her marriage, while a young couple wrestles with jealousy. Each chapter delves into the unpredictability of love with humor and poignancy.

While shooting a film, the director becomes interested in the unfolding struggle of a young factory worker that has been laid off by a boss who did not like her union activities.

Along with her husband and three children, Marthe lives in an eden of her own creation, nearly isolated from the rest of the world. The arrival of a construction vehicle, however, pierces their tranquil, hermetic existence—before long a disused highway has been re-opened, and the family finds their home situated in the midst of rush-hour traffic. While the privileges of clean air, quietude and privacy are thus denied them, Marthe remains determined to stay no matter the cost.

Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.

An affluent, middle-aged couple's uneventful lives are forever changed when they move into an isolated house in the country and befriend an odd, younger couple.

A well-to-do French family living in Calais deal with a series of setbacks and crises while paying little attention to the grim conditions in the refugee camps within a few miles of their home.

After a rough divorce, Frances, a 35-year-old professor and writer from San Francisco takes a tour of Tuscany at the urgings of her friends. On a whim she buys Bramasole, a run down villa in the Tuscan countryside and begins to piece her life together starting with the villa and finds that life sometimes has unexpected ways of giving her everything she wanted.

After the death of her mother, 17-year-old Prudence finds herself living alone in her Paris apartment. Then she meets Maryline, a rebel of her own age, who introduces her to the thrills of motorcycle racing on the biker circuit at Rungis. Prudence’s newfound lease of freedom becomes complicated when she falls for a boy Franck who wastes no time in taking advantage of her naivety...

A bourgeois housewife, planning to go back to work as a physiotherapist after having devoted 20 years to her husband and two children, has her comfortable, elegant life turned upside down when she falls for a Spanish builder and begins a runaway affair.

Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.

A young woman moves to Paris and has a brush with disaster. Grown-up at last, an accomplished woman thought she was safe from her own past. Gradually, these characters come together to form a single heroine.

Broke, with nothing but her cat to her name and doors closing in her face, Paula is back in Paris after a long absence. As she meets different people along the way, there is one thing she knows for sure: she's determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style and panache.

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

When his fiancée dumps him at the altar for her ex, a young man is left with no alternative but to go on his romantic honeymoon with his mother.

A celebrity journalist, juggling her busy career and personal life, has her life over-turned by a freak car accident.

A lonely 40-year old woman finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age?

Agathe Langlois, Parisian until the end of the nails well varnishes, is delighted: she is going to be confirmed as a professor of English. The happiness of the good news will not last as she learns that she is deployed to the countryside.

Joseph and his two sons, Joachim and Ivan, form a close-knit family but fail to see that each one is losing control of his life. Joachim is supposed to be studying psychiatry but spends most of his time daydreaming about his ex-girlfriend, Ivan cannot fit in at school despite being very smart, and Joseph has secretly quit his job as a doctor and is trying to become a writer. While there is plenty of affection at home, all three are also, clumsily, searching for love...

The former famous painter Frenhofer lives quietly with his wife on a countryside residence in the French Provence. When the young artist Nicolas visits him with his girlfriend Marianne, Frenhofer decides to start again the work on a painting he long ago stopped: La Belle Noiseuse. And he wants Marianne as model.

Maria is a cleaning lady, who is reserved, shy and clumsy. When she is assigned to the School of Fine Arts, she meets Hubert, the school's whimsical guardian. There she discovers a fascinating place where freedom, creativity and daring reign.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.


