La Vie en Rose (La Môme) (*½)
Director: Olivier Dahan
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu
Seen: January 26th 2008
*½ Out of ****
Marion Cotillard has continually impressed me for a while now. Firstly I enjoyed her as Tina in the brilliant A Very Long Engagement (directed by Amelie’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet), and then as Russell Crowe’s love interest in the very enjoyable A Good Year (Directed by the massive Ridley Scott). Once again she does so with a portrayal of Edith Piaff that beats all other acting feats this year hands down.
It is a pity though, that the film is so extremely melodramatic. Edith Piaff did have a very hard life, but this film is overloaded with her hardships and her extreme suffering at every turn, it gets too much at around 70 minutes into this 140 minute behemoth. Now other films have been longer, but a film with this much melodrama will feel like a monstrous event if it is edited down to the minimum standard of 90 minutes.
The film is one tragic event after another, but thankfully it does get interspersed with the fantastic music Edith became known and loved for. The one problem that I do occasionally have with this kind of biopic is that it can taint a person’s view of the person behind the legend. I, for one, found the film Ali awful, because in real life Muhammad Ali was such a horrible person (personal opinion), and he never really let up with it. Edith Piaff, however, lifted herself up out of her tribulations, even if only to perform for her crowds, which is admirable.
To get back to Cotillard’s performance, she wasn’t recognisable in this performance as either herself, Tina (Engagement), or any of her other characters. She was brilliant as she became Edith Piaff, and her Oscar is well-deserved. At the end though, the parts that made the movie worth while was the music, especially No Regrets, and that I could’ve listened to without having to watch this movie, although now I enjoy it a little bit more…
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu
Seen: January 26th 2008
*½ Out of ****
Marion Cotillard has continually impressed me for a while now. Firstly I enjoyed her as Tina in the brilliant A Very Long Engagement (directed by Amelie’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet), and then as Russell Crowe’s love interest in the very enjoyable A Good Year (Directed by the massive Ridley Scott). Once again she does so with a portrayal of Edith Piaff that beats all other acting feats this year hands down.
It is a pity though, that the film is so extremely melodramatic. Edith Piaff did have a very hard life, but this film is overloaded with her hardships and her extreme suffering at every turn, it gets too much at around 70 minutes into this 140 minute behemoth. Now other films have been longer, but a film with this much melodrama will feel like a monstrous event if it is edited down to the minimum standard of 90 minutes.
The film is one tragic event after another, but thankfully it does get interspersed with the fantastic music Edith became known and loved for. The one problem that I do occasionally have with this kind of biopic is that it can taint a person’s view of the person behind the legend. I, for one, found the film Ali awful, because in real life Muhammad Ali was such a horrible person (personal opinion), and he never really let up with it. Edith Piaff, however, lifted herself up out of her tribulations, even if only to perform for her crowds, which is admirable.
To get back to Cotillard’s performance, she wasn’t recognisable in this performance as either herself, Tina (Engagement), or any of her other characters. She was brilliant as she became Edith Piaff, and her Oscar is well-deserved. At the end though, the parts that made the movie worth while was the music, especially No Regrets, and that I could’ve listened to without having to watch this movie, although now I enjoy it a little bit more…
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