La Vie en Rose (2007)

I recently realized I didn’t know that much about famous French singer Edith Piaf (1915-63), and I wasn’t sure I entirely understood her attraction! So, what better entry than a biopic? Because I loves me my biopics! Yeah, often they’re highly fictionalized, but they often are a good entry point for having a sense of a person and what makes them them. So I’m disappointed to say that although Marion Cotillard‘s performance WAS amazing, La Vie en Rose (2007) was too chaotic for me to REALLY get Piaf.

Oh, you get to see her incredibly humble beginnings, from a totally neglected child of a mentally ill and poor mother to a similarly broke father who dumped her with her brothel-owning grandmother for a time. You get to see how she started singing in the streets with her father, who was mostly out for number one.

And you get to see her in her teens, tearing around the shabby parts of Paris with her best friend and being totally wild.

But because the film jumps around A LOT, I didn’t always get the connecting thread. Okay, so she’s poor AF and didn’t give a shit, and some of her early impresarios taught her how to behave like A Star, but it still didn’t connect me (personality-wise) to the person she became as an adult.

I don’t know, I guess I like a more conventional “we start as a child and then progress chronologically”? I suppose I should just be thankful that Gerard Dépardieu‘s part was blessedly small.

The film’s costumes were designed by Marit Allen, and they are certainly on point for their eras, although as Piaf famously wore a Little Black Dress for most of her adult performing, it was hard to see a ton of detail.

Cotillard said of designer Allen,

“Marit is a very talented person. We had no money at all and yet she managed to clothe all the extras and to clothe Piaf. . . . I wanted to look smaller, so I asked Marit to make the clothes a little tighter than normal, to help me contract. [The other actors] all wore inserts in their shoes to make them seem taller, and I walked around barefoot. I didn’t keep any costumes. But I did keep the replica of Marlene Dietrich’s cross because Marit gave that to me. Oh! And I kept one of the prosthetics. And the fake teeth!” (Mad Props to the Props Pros).

Were you blown away by La Vie en Rose? What didn’t I get?

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