Sylvain and Pierre have been running from the law ever since a custody battle with their mother, won by the latter, pushed their father Yves into hiding ten years ago. But now that they're older, the two brothers are road-weary and eager to take advantage of the perks of young adulthood. When the authorities discover their whereabouts, they are forced to move yet again and Pierre, the elder, disappears. Alone with his father on an island in the Loire River, Sylvain meets Gilda: his first girl, his first crush, and the first stop on his way to "the good life" - his own.

"La belle vie is loosely based on the Fortin case, concerning a man who kidnapped his two children and raised them in hiding, in the French countryside, for over ten years. In this film, dramatic and light-hearted, even sensual, by turns, with life on the run the new normal, one's identity a mask one wears, and freedom a distant hope, a sixteen-year-old boy decides to find his own way. That way will lead from the Pyrenees to the Loire Valley, from one family to another, and turn him into the man he never dreamed he could become." [Jean Denizot]