A tour-de-force

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2008)

As biopics go this is quite a considerable cut above most in the field, (that it's French and not American may account for something). It is, of course, the Edith Piaf story and while it doesn't add anything to our knowledge of Piaf, it is made with such brio and style it hardly matters. Nor is it told chronologically, leaping back and forth through Piaf's life to culminate, naturally, with the Olympia concert and 'Non, je ne regrette rien'. The effect this has is not so much to tell her story in chapters but in paragraphs, little vignettes that, when put together, provide a very moving whole. The other effect of this, of course, is to throw us off balance so that scenes and incidents spring up on us unannounced. This is far from a complacent film and at it's heart is a tour-de-force performance from Marion Cotillard as Piaf.
It would be easy enough to say that this is an extraordinary piece of mimicry except that Cotillard doesn't really look like Piaf for a good deal of the time. Rather Cotillard casts Piaf in her own likeness. This is acting, not recreation; a performance as magnanimous and, at times, as overblown as anything Piaf herself might have given. It may even be great acting, (or at least great 'film' acting because it is a performance as much molded by the camera and the editor as by the actress herself), and it's the kind of performance that makes you hungry to see more of Cotillard, to see what else she can do. It's not, perhaps, a film for the novice coming blind to the subject but for anyone wanting to be reacquainted with The Little Sparrow it will very nicely indeed.