You can argue that they’ve left out her role in the French Resistance. You might complain that Yves Montand is nowhere to be seen. But you won’t be able to resist the big show-stopping rendition of “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
A biopic of the French Judy Garland? How perfectly fabulous, I hear you cry. Certainly, the life of Edith Piaf, the shrewish chanteuse who was born in a whorehouse and raised on the streets, who toured with a circus, who battled a heroin addiction, who lost her sight in childhood and everyone she ever held dear, would put Courtney Love to shame.
Cackling her way through an endless stream of guttural profanities, Marion Cotrillard plays the scanger turned cultural icon with furniture-chewing gusto. That’s just as it should be. Piaf’s stoop, shrieking tantrums and potty-mouthed mores could hardly be aped with restraint. Tearing through Piaf’s tempestuous life, M. Cotrillard’s tough-cookie only crumbles when she falls for the boxer Marcel Cerdan. Even then, her simpering is less romantic than discombobulating.
Actually, La Vie En Rose, for all the soap-opera and lush period details, is never romantic. Piaf’s wiry recordings – used here on the soundtrack as they proved too difficult to imitate – have never lost the hard edge of the street. Happily, Olivier Dahan doesn’t shy away from Piaf’s low-borne nastiness, adding welcome grit to what might have been polite heritage cinema.
A glittering supporting cast play such glittering historical figures as Jean Cocteau and Marlene Dietrich. But the film is never better than when trading in ‘no wire hangers’ hysteria.