Two Is a Family

Samuel Omar Sy is a laid‑back runner, party‑goer and womanizer who lives by the sea in the south of France. One day Kristin Clémence Poésy, a former fling, entrusts Samuel with her three‑month‑old daughter, Gloria Gloria Colston. Unable to care for Gloria, Samuel heads to London to return her to her mother. He loses track of Kristin, has no money, and speaks no English. In London, he meets Bernie Antoine Bertrand, a Frenchman who works in the film industry and offers him a stunt job that changes everything.

Over the next eight years, Samuel raises Gloria and works as a stuntman, with Gloria often by his side as he still cannot speak English. To give Gloria a sense of family, Samuel fabricates an imaginary secret-agent mother who corresponds with Gloria on the Internet. During a visit to the Doctor Jay Benedict, the film plants the idea that Samuel might be seriously ill, adding a sense of urgency to their precarious life.

When Gloria is eight, her real mother returns from New York with her boyfriend Lowell Ashley Walters, bringing a new maternal instinct into Gloria’s world. Samuel grows frustrated with Kristin, who soon asks to take Gloria back to New York. Gloria overhears Samuel revealing that he fabricated her mother’s backstory, and she grows distant from her father.

Kristin petitions for custody, and the case goes to court. Samuel manages to convince the judge that he has Gloria’s best interests at heart and wins temporary custody, but Kristin then arranges a DNA test that reveals Samuel is not Gloria’s biological father. While the legal win slips away, Samuel escapes with Gloria back to his old life in France. As they’re hunted by Kristin and Bernie, Bernie confronts Kristin and reveals that Gloria is terminally ill and could die at any time.

Eventually they are found on the beach, and Kristin drops her custody bid. The four come together as a family, but the final image lingers on Samuel alone on the shore, leaving a quiet, sorrowful sense that Gloria has passed away.

Last Updated: October 03, 2025 at 06:46