La Vie en Rose

Rating: 6/10 (11 February 2011)

It was after the film won the Academy Award for the leading female star, one of the few times I know it being for a foreign language film, that I remembered the title, and would do until I eventually saw it. This film is showing us the life of famous singer Édith Piaf, played in adulthood by Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe winning Marion Cotillard, she was also known as The Little Sparrow, and the story is told in a non-chronological order. The film begins with little Édith at the ages of five and ten, where her mother was an alcoholic and her father Louis Gassion (Jean-Paul Rouve) was a circus performer, and her grandmother owned a brothel. She made a living singing on the streets, and this continued into her adolescence, and she is discovered at age twenty by cabaret club owner Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu), he is the one who gave her the surname Piaf, translated as "sparrow". With the help of vocal coach Raymond Asso (Marc Barbé) her powerhouse voice gains much more interest, and she achieves greater fame singing in Paris concert halls, and then throughout Europe and the United States. There is speculation when she is linked to the mob, including murder, morphine and alcohol addiction (although we don't see much of this), and there was a romance with already married middleweight boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) and Jacques Pills (Laurent Olmedo) who she did marry. She carries on to have great success, until her health deteriorated, and at a very old age she is ready to die in the care of others, and the final scenes see her singing her most well-known song (apart from of course the title song), "Je Ne Regrette Rien" ("No Regrets") at the Olympia theatre. Also starring Sylvie Testud as Mômone, Pascal Greggory as Louis Barrier, Emmanuelle Seigner as Titine, Clotilde Courau as Anetta and Catherine Allégret as Louise. I agree with the critics that the true life story could have been told better, it is a little confusing all mixed up, but Cottilard gives a very award worthy performance, even when she is miming it doesn't matter, she is brilliant, with talking and singing sequences, overall, a period biographical drama certainly worth watching. It won the Oscar for Best Makeup, and it was nominated for Best Costume Design, it won the BAFTA for Best Costume Design, Best Make Up & Hair and Best Music for Christopher Gunning, and it was nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Production Design and Best Sound. Good!