Marion Cotillard is wonderful, but the direction's not so great

Rating: 5/10 (17 February 2007)

Although Marion Cotillard does a wonderful job being Edith Piaf, I didn't quite enjoy the movie, mostly because of the bad direction. Olivier Dahan tries too hard to play with the flashbacks and get us lost at times. Some characters just disappear and then reappear just like that, and even though we kind of guess what happened, I wish we could have seen more at times. As for the use of colors (e.g. the extra use of Sepia at the circus, the NY scenes...) I believe this isn't exploited to its best. As for the sound... I was really disappointed because at times, the tension builds, and the viewers expect a song that never comes!!! It could have been done so much more beautifully!!! Really too bad, because the actors are really breathtaking!