Review of La Vie en Rose directed by Olivier Dahan
Rating ***
This is the film that won Marion Catillard this year’s Oscar for best actress. She does an amazing job in the film. She plays Edith Piaf, a French singer who died in her forties.
The screenwriter and director do a commendable job of trying to squeeze in forty-plus years of Edith’s tragic life, but the overall impact for me was that it was a bit disjointed. This is partly due to the structure of using flashbacks interspersed throughout the film. There are so many flashbacks that it’s sometimes hard to follow.
The other problem I had was that Edith comes across as a totally unlikeable character. For someone who had dealt with so much turmoil in her life you would think that the filmmakers would have tried to show her in a more positive light at least in a few scenes.
Despite those flaws, Marion Catillard plays Edith convincingly, especially in the musical pieces. She totally transforms herself physically to portray Edit who becomes addicted to morphine after an auto accident. The makeup used to aid these transformations works part of the time and part of the time it doesn’t.
My wife loved the film and watched it twice. So what do I know.