LA VIE EN ROSE

Director: Olivier Dahan (French film, TV work)
Starring: Marion Cotillard

I must admit that, toward the end, this film simply bored me to tears. I should also add that at the time I watched it, I was in no mood for this type of pic at all. I hope I'm rational enough to realize this and can give the film more credit than I felt at the time.

I should start by saying my boredom was absolutely not due to Ms. Cotillard's fine performance as Edith Piaf, the famous French singer. In fact at first the film held my full attention. It's just that over the course of 2 hours the overdone "Frenchness" of the film wore me down. Oh, I understand why they did this. Edith Piaf is often regarded as the French persona distilled into a single tragic voice, so any movie on her would have to wallow in Francophilia, no? For me, though there were just too many moments where the artistic ironic tragedy was so profound that it crossed well over into silly self-parody. Yep, this film was the very stereotype of La Francais. Of course, how else but with a shake of your head and a wry smile can you view a people who feel the need to randomly assign a gender to every word in their vocabulary. As David Sedaris tells us, in France, an electric floor-waxer is a girl. Of course she is.

On the other hand however, this film is still entirely worth seeing for Cotillard's bombastic performance as the gutter-trash turned voice-of-France, Edith Piaf. From my perspective I wanted to see the film simply to learn about the famous singer. Going into the film I only knew the highlights (raised by Hookers, adored by millions). It turns out that she was one messed up lady. Really, really messed up. But with a hell of a voice, and a hell of a talent for conveying intense, operatic, melodramatic (French?) emotion in song.

A film well worth seeing if you adore la France, Piaf, or even music biopics like Ray or Walk the Line - because Piaf's life in many ways followed the same rags to riches, to rags, to beloved-figure-for-the-ages story as those films.

Standouts: Cotillard as one emotionally stunted and uncentered (but talented) individual.
Blowouts: The French (at times, only at times.)

Grade: B-