1054 - Le Vie En Rose

There's been a lot of bio-pics come out in the last few years, and the majority of them are about singers/musicians. There's a common thread amongst a lot of them, as I believe that a lot of them, the ones that are compelling, have a common story. They have issues with relationships, substance abuses, and that's a large part of their tale. Walk Hard did a really great job of lampooning a lot of these films while still telling it's own story. The makers of that film would have had a field day with this one.

I think I hated this film. That might be a bit drastic, but I know that I didn't like it. Nope. I sure didn't. It was beautiful to look at, you could probably take any single frame from the film and have a beautiful photo to look at. Cotillard looked, and I'm sure acted exactly as Piaf did. So what? The story, if you'd like to call it that, was so fractured and, dare I say, boring, that I had nothing to grasp onto, nothing to care about. Piaf came off as a drunkard whose life she wasted. No specific reason was really ever given for her addictions. The film made you feel like a fly on the wall, which I suppose was the point, but by doing that you're not able to get emotionally involved or attached. The biggest mistake this film makes is trying to tell her life story from cradle to grave, and honestly, it's not that interesting. I'm sure an engaging film about her love affair with Marcel could have been made, but here it's just a part, even if it is the most interesting part. There is one single beautiful scene that happens ***SPOILER ALERT*** when she realizes that he has died ***END SPOILER*** but the film only works because they've taken a poetic license with it.

The scenes with her as a child are the most interesting in the film. After that is was a struggle to get through this sluggish piece of cinema. I could have easily turned it off, I cared that little about her story.

If you haven't seen this do yourself a favor and don't. I love artsy movies, but they have to be beautiful and tell an engaging story. I like pretty pictures as much as the next guy, but it's not enough.