Élisa (1995 film)

Élisa is a 1995 French drama film directed by Jean Becker and starring Vanessa Paradis, Gérard Depardieu, Clotilde Courau, Firmine Richard and Florence Thomassin. It was released by Gaumont through Gaumont Buena Vista International in France on 1 February 1995.

Plot
Marie is a teenage girl living a criminal life with her friends on the streets of Paris. Her mother, Élisa, suffering from poverty, abandoned by her husband and estranged from her parents, had tried to kill her when she was very young and subsequently committed suicide, while her father has never been part of her life. One day she decides to find and take revenge on her father for not helping her when she was a child. When she finds him she realizes that she cannot kill him. In a flashback it is revealed that he had left his wife because she had prostituted herself to earn money for the family's upkeep. When Marie finds a love letter which her father had sent to her mother, she forgives him.

Cast

 * Vanessa Paradis as Marie Desmoulin
 * Gérard Depardieu as Jacques 'Lébovitch' Desmoulin
 * Clotilde Courau as Solange
 * Sekkou Sall as Ahmed
 * Florence Thomassin as Élisa Desmoulin
 * Michel Bouquet as Samuel
 * Philippe Léotard as Gitane Smoker
 * Catherine Rouvel as Manina
 * Melvil Poupaud as Pharmacist's son
 * Olivier Saladin as Kevin
 * Bernard Verley as The contractor
 * José Garcia as Taxi Passenger
 * Philippe Duquesne as P.M.U. Owner
 * Firmine Richard as P.M.U. Customer
 * Samir Guesmi

Themes
The film features the song Elisa by Serge Gainsbourg, to whom the film is posthumously dedicated. The song tells about the love of a man in his forties for a girl in her twenties, alluding to Marie and her father Jacques.