I had regrets....hours of them

Rating: 3/10 (29 January 2008)

This elaborate but headache inducing bio of apparently cranky wretch Edith Piaf is like a Bollywood musical in French: it has every imaginable dramatic sequence, a lot just plain exhausting and contrived, and the viewer is left bludgeoned by the result and endless running time. I actually really disliked this film and thought the character of Piaf was rude ungrateful and mean....maybe she really was, but I really did not care two hoots by the end of the film. I am also sick of seeing Gerard Depardieu in French films.... why is he in so many? Isn't there other actors in France. This film is known as LA VIE EN ROSE in Australia and it had a good run but after discussion many people reveal their thoughts are not too different to mine. However there is one superb sequence when she discovers her husband has come to her in a vision. Other than that it was a dirge with a thumping delivery of trilling songs that just simply gave me a headache. I know Cotilliard is up for an Oscar in 2008 and her performance is a complete one but the film is too long and terribly overwrought... among all that screaming misery and endlessly moaned songs.