Stunning Performance from Cotillard

Rating: 5/10 (13 January 2009)

With any biopic, the film will either be successful or it wont based solely on the quality of the lead performance. It will either be good or bad just on the acting alone. How great it is depends on other aspects, but "La Vie en Rose" is a showcasing of one of the most powerful female performances ever seen. Marion Cotillard is dazzling, heartbreaking, full of life, hate, self destruction and many other things. Cotillard gives as good a physical performance as she does an emotional one. She doesn't try to make this flawed human being likable. At some points in the film, I couldn't stand her. I couldn't believe the way she treated people. The way she acted. But, by the end, I was in love with her voice. Her regrets. Her accomplishments. Her flaws. She wasn't perfect. Her upbringing was painful. But her life... extraordinary. Cotillard gives the performance of a life time. This truly is one of the most impressive performance ever given, male or female.