The Life Ahead
Official poster
Directed by	Edoardo Ponti
Screenplay by	Edoardo Ponti Ugo Chiti
Based on	The Life Before Us by Romain Gary Madame Rosa byMoshé Mizrahi
Produced by	Carlo Degli Esposti Nicola Serra Regina K. Scully Jamie Wolf
Starring	Sophia Loren Ibrahim Gueye
Cinematography	Angus Hudson
Edited by	Jacopo Quadri
Music by	Gabriel Yared
Production companies	Palomar Impact Partners Artemis Rising Another Chance Productions Foothills Productions
Distributed by	Netflix
Release dates	6 November 2020 (2020-11-06) (United States) 13 November 2020 (2020-11-13) (Italy)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

The Life Ahead (Italian:La vita davanti a sé) is a 2020 Italiandrama film directed byEdoardo Ponti, from a screenplay by Ponti andUgo Chiti. It isthe third screen adaptation of the 1975 novelThe Life Before Us byRomain Gary. It starsSophia Loren, Ibrahim Gueye andAbril Zamora, and is set inBari, Italy.

The film was preceded byMadame Rosa, a 1977 film based on the Gary novel, directed byMoshé Mizrahi and featuringSimone Signoret. Like the book, the first film version is set inParis.^[1]

The Life Ahead was given alimited release on November 6, 2020, followed by digital streaming onNetflix on November 13.

Madam Rosa is a former prostitute and JewishHolocaust survivor who provides a home in her apartment for the children of other "working women" in the Italian port city ofBari,Apulia. After Momo, a 12-year-old, orphaned,Senegalese immigrant, robs her, Dr. Coen, the boy's foster guardian, who also happens to be Rosa's doctor, brings her stolen items back and makes the boy apologize. Coen offers Rosa money to take in the boy and look after him for a couple of months, and she reluctantly agrees.

Momo, who has been kicked out of school for stabbing a bully with a pencil, secretly sells drugs for a dealer in Bari, but Rosa also finds him work with Hamil, a kindMuslim shopkeeper. All of these adults try to guide the boy. Rosa's neighbor and friend Lola, a transgender prostitute, whose daughter Rosa looks after, helps Rosa as she begins to decline mentally. At times she is lucid while at others she iscatatonic.

Rosa and Momo develop a deep bond, and after he becomes her only ward, he quits selling drugs. Although her health is declining, Rosa asks Momo to promise to keep her out of hospitals, of which she is terrified since beingmedically experimented on as a child in theAuschwitz concentration camp. Momo agrees and promises, but Rosa is finally taken to the hospital after a particularly bad episode. Momo sneaks her out of the hospital at night and hides her in a basement storage room in her apartment building, where she feels safe. Momo stays there with Rosa, caring for her until she dies. Afterwards, Lola finally discovers their secret. The film ends with Rosa's funeral.

• Sophia Loren as Madame Rosa
• Ibrahim Gueye as Momo
• Abril Zamora as Lola
• Renato Carpentieri as Dr. Coen
• Babak Karimi as Hamil
• Massimiliano Rossi as drug dealer

In July 2019, it was announced thatSophia Loren, Ibrahaim Gueye,Abril Zamora,Renato Carpentieri andBabak Karimi had joined the cast of the film, withEdoardo Ponti directing from a screenplay he wrote alongsideUgo Chiti, based upon the novelThe Life Before Us byRomain Gary.^[2]

Principal photography began in July 2019 inBari, Italy.^[3]

In February 2020,Netflix acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film.^[4] It was released in alimited release on November 6, 2020, followed by digital streaming onNetflix on November 13, 2020.^[5][6]

According toDeadline,The Life Ahead became a streaming hit, peaking within Netflix's top ten in 37 countries.^[7]

The Life Ahead holds a 92% approval rating on review aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 89 reviews, with an average of 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A classic example of how a talented actor can elevate somewhat standard material,The Life Ahead proves Sophia Loren's star power remains absolutely undimmed."^[8] OnMetacritic, the film holds a rating of 66 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[9]

In a three-starred review forThe Observer,Mark Kermode said of Sophia Loren: "The 86-year-old star’s expressive performance as a former sex worker caring for an orphaned child is the main draw in this sometimes formulaic tale directed by her son."^[10] P.J. Grisar ofThe Forward was critical in his review, calling the film "treacly," "derivative," and "clichéd" when compared with the 1977 filmMadame Rosa, its "nuanced and celebrated predecessor." He calls Loren's performance "sturdy" and Ponti’s direction "capable," but describesThe Life Ahead as a "wan exercise, free of humor or verve."^[11]

• The Life Ahead atIMDb
• The Life Ahead onNetflix
• The Life Ahead atRotten Tomatoes
• The Life Ahead atMetacritic

• 2020 films
• 2020 drama films
• 2020s American films
• 2020s Italian films
• 2020s Italian-language films
• American drama films
• Films based on French novels
• Films based on works by Romain Gary
• Films set in Bari
• Italian drama films
• Italian remakes of French films
• Italian-language American films
• Netflix original films
• Palomar films
• Satellite Award–winning films

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Template film date with 2 release dates
• Articles containing Italian-language text
• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Rotten Tomatoes ID same as Wikidata