Marion Cotillard undergoes an amazing physical transformation to portray legendary French singer Edith Piaf. By the end, when alcohol and drug abuse have reduced Piaf’s body to wreckage, the young actress looks like Gollum. Emotionally, Cotillard portrays Piaf as a blunt instrument – not unlike her blaring voice, which can feel as if it’s literally grabbing your ears. She comes across as more fond of the diva lifestyle that her talent allows than the talent itself. Perhaps by the time she began to taste the good life, she felt as if she had deserved it. Abandoned by both parents at different times and raised for a period in a brothel run by her grandmother, Piaf’s first stage was the streets. Considering the wild details of Piaf’s life – a childhood stint with her father in a circus, a romance with world-champion boxer Marcel Cerdan – La Vie en Rose is a fairly staid, conventional picture, one that hits all the familiar biopic beats. Director Olivier Dahan could hardly fail with this sort of material, but that doesn’t mean he’s necessarily done it justice.
