La Vie En Rose
2007
***
Director: Olivier Dahan
Cast: Marion Cotillard, Gérard Depardieu, Sylvie Testud, Jean-Pierre Martins, Emmanuelle Seigner, Pascal Greggory, Catherine Allégret, Jean-Paul Ro as
The legendary French singer Edith Piaf rose from the Parisian slums to fame, but her taxing lifestyle took its toll at the age of 47. You could take the girl out of the gutter, but you couldn't take the gutter out of the girl. This unconventional biopic depicts her life more or less from birth to death, but it cuts back and forth to some of the defining moments in the diva's life. This storytelling technique is ultimately alienating and exhausting, not to mention confusing. What age is she at any given stage? Who are the people around her? Who is the dead child mentioned in passing? Was there such thing as World War 2? Olivier Dahan expects us to take certain aspects of her life for granted and be willing to ignore some blatant omissions. Marion Cotillard doesn't sing herself but she captures the character's physical frailty and volatile personality. It's a larger-than-life performance which predictably earned her an Oscar.
