Cotillard amazing

Rating: 7/10 (19 November 2016)

This is a biopic of Édith Piaf (Marion Cotillard) told in a non-linear manner. The movie starts with her collapsing during a 1959 New York performance. She is a young girl crying in the streets of 1918 Paris. Her father is away at war and her singing mother abandons her. He returns home to take the sick Édith away to his mother who runs a brothel in Normandy. She is befriended by maternal hooker Titine. His father returns again to take her away to work in the circus. They quit the circus and she starts singing in the streets. Nightclub owner Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu) hires her giving her the name Piaf until his murder. This is a low point as the public turns against her and she is forced into a convent by her mother. Next, she is in post-war New York falling for boxer Marcel Cerdan. It is a troubled exuberant life of ups and downs.
Marion Cotillard is incredibly powerful acting this wild life. She delivers on every point. It's a masterful performance. The movie itself is a long-running biopic. The story isn't able to distill into a simple idea. It's a lot of sections and vignettes. The most controversial and powerful should be her years in occupied Europe working under Nazi rule. Oddly, the movie seems to skip over that important part of her life. Maybe, there are uncomfortable rumors that the movie refuses to touch. Overall, Cotillard is so powerful that any problems fade into the background.