Cotillard's performance is the only thing holding the movie together

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2007)

"La Vie en Rose" uses a nonsensically jumbled structure to tell the life story of Edith Piaf, a woman whose life had perhaps enough tragedy for two movies but barely makes sense in this version. This structure certainly sets "La Vie en Rose" apart from all those other biopics about talented, difficult, drug-addled musicians, but that's not necessarily good. While there's nothing inherently wrong with telling a story out of sequence, there needs to be some logic to the way the scenes fit together. "La Vie en Rose," however, has the annoying habit of cutting away from a scene just when it is getting interesting, to show a different time period that bears no obvious connection to the other scene.
The movie also assumes previous knowledge of Edith Piaf's life, since it leaves so much unsaid. For instance, on her deathbed, Piaf mentions her husband Theo, but that's the only reference to him in the movie. Worse, the movie skips from 1940 to 1947missing the World War II years when Piaf was in her prime. And considering "La Vie en Rose" presents Edith as a French folk heroine (she is guided by Saint Therese and discovers her vocal talent singing "La Marseillaise"), it's strange to omit the heroic work she did for the Resistance during this time. Instead, the movie finds its greatest emotional resonance in a love affair Piaf had with boxer Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) in the late '40s. You can tell that this relationship is doomed from the startthe tension between Edith's wholehearted faith in love, and the way that destiny seems to be set against her, is quite affecting.
In the middle of all this, Marion Cotillard does an amazing job, embodying all the physical and emotional states of a woman who lived a short, hard life. She's great as the scrappy "Sparrow Kid" with tremulous eyes and smile; the imperious diva made vulnerable by love; and the broken-down, stubborn woman who is 47 years old but looks 77. Truly, she abandons herself in this role.
The English subtitles translate the dialogue well, but not always the lyrics to Piaf's songs. This is a problem, because often the song has some thematic relevance to the scene it's accompanying, and non-French-speakers will miss out. Sometimes the song is the only thing that connects two seemingly disparate scenes in this very disjointed, whiplash- inducing movie.