This isn't the first time Piaf's life has been brought to the screen and it probably won't be the last, but Cotillard makes this particular version stand apart.
La Vie En Rose (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:24
Rotten:11
Average Rating:6.7/10
Consensus: The set design and cinematography are impressive, but the real achievement of La Vie en Rose is Marion Cotillard's mesmerizing, wholly convincing performance as Edith Pilaf.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for substance abuse, sexual content, brief nudity, language and thematic elements.
Runtime: 2 hrs 21 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:Jun 8, 2007 Limited
Box Office: $10,126,918
Synopsis: According to Marlene Dietrich, chanteuse Edith Piaf's voice was "the soul of Paris." This French drama explores the often troubled life of the singer as her fame took her from the City of Lights to... According to Marlene Dietrich, chanteuse Edith Piaf's voice was "the soul of Paris." This French drama explores the often troubled life of the singer as her fame took her from the City of Lights to America to the South of France. Abandoned by her mother, Piaf grew up in her grandmother's brothel and her father's circus, which is hardly the fun one might imagine. While singing on the streets of Paris as a teen, Piaf (played as an adult by Marion Cotillard, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) is discovered by club owner Louis Leplée (Gérard Depardieu), and this chance encounter changes the woman's life. Her powerful voice takes her all over the globe, but it can't guard her from the pain and suffering she can't avoid. As Piaf, Cotillard is mesmerizing. She fully inhabits the singer's ivory skin, crafting a character that never descends into caricature or camp. She lip syncs to Piaf's legendary voice, but the performance is seamless. Like WALK THE LINE and RAY, this biopic creates a fascinating picture of an artist whose songs only begin to reflect the singer's painful life. But director-writer Olivier Dahan (LA VIE PROMISE) doesn't take the traditional biopic route with LA VIE EN ROSE. Instead, the film jumps between various moments in the singer's life, with little concern for linear narrative. Cotillard is just as adept at playing the teenage Piaf as she is the songbird on her deathbed at the age of 47, and it's her amazing performance that makes LA VIE EN ROSE worth seeing. [More]
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Gerard Depardieu, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner, Clotilde Courau, Jean Paul Rouve, Marc Barbe, Catherine Allégret, Manon Chevallier, Pauline Burlet, Elisabeth Commelin, Marc Gannot
Director: Oliver Dahan
Director: Oliver Dahan
Screenwriter: Olivier Dahan
Producer: Alain Goldman
Composer: Christopher Gunning
Studio: Picturehouse
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Reviews for La Vie En Rose
Marion Cotillard tears up all the available scenery in this overblown, achronological biopic of French pop singer Edith Piaf.
Compelling but punishing -- an artful ordeal. The best way to process it may be as unintended camp, rolling your eyes in amazement at its litany of misery and heaps of histrionics.
Don't bother voting. Just give the Oscar to Marion Cotillard now. As the chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, her acting is the most astonishing I've seen in years.
Untidy and self-conscious, the movie nevertheless pulls together a vivid portrait of Edith Piaf.
... Marion Cotillard, lip-syncing Piaf's songs and digging into her soul with gale-force urgency, gives a performance for the ages.
Americans are unlikely to 'get her' any more, after watching this movie ...
... La Vie en Rose uses perceptive filmmaking, as opposed to turgid exposition, to explain its subject's psyche and to cleverly capture the spell she cast over audiences.
Dahan and Cotillard have created an amazing biopic of an extraordinary voice attached to a fragile and fallible woman.
Olivier Dahan's film is both faithful to and freewheeling with the facts of Piaf's life. Much is left out, but the essentials are there.
Wildly uneven. Fully half of writer-director Olivier Dahan's drama sticks to the surface, and even then, many of the factually accurate bits come off as Hollywood lies.
[A] simple-minded, cheaply sentimental and unrelievedly lugubrious movie.
There's a riveting tale within this awkward litany of pivotal moments. Still, despite the film's uneven nature, Cotillard's extraordinary performance is worth experiencing.
Somewhere between shooting and post-production the film got chopped into tiny, bit-sized pieces reshuffled to such a degree that it becomes hard to follow the narration.
La Vie en Rose is a life seen through a glass tinted darkly, with Cotillard glittering fiercely before the light goes out.
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