Excellent acting, but two hours of unmitigated misery. Ignored much in Piaf's life that would have provided context, depth and appreciation for her contributions. Why, for example, are Piaf's actions during France's Nazi occupation omitted? A confusing and superficial soap opera that doesn't look beyond Piaf's self-destructive tendencies.

Formulaic, made-for-TV, slap-dash approach to a story which would have been interesting if more insightful, less superficial.

This movie is an extaordinary experience and Ms.Cotillard gives a tour de force performance! Just as some U.S. critics never 'got' Piaf, some present day critics didn't get this film. Even if you are not familiar with Piaf, you will be astounded by the voice and the film.

The critics missed this one, raw and powerful, with a climactic sequence that manages to be bleak and despairing, and uplifting and deeply moving at the same time.

I thought this film was a very good biopic of one of France's greatest exports. Edith Piaf's music and voice continue to touch new fans and this movie really gives a nice overview into her life. Acting was superb. The only knock I have on this film is that it could have gone deeper into the psyche of Piaf. A towering voice deserves a towering tale, and heart.

I thought this was a beautiful and mesmerizing film in which the weak point was me; the viewer. It is the best film I have seen this year. I went into the film knowing nothing about Edith Piaf and rushed home to search her on the web. A brilliant piece of work.

An amazing engaging film of a conflicted tormented talented individual. A first rate experience in the movie theatre.

Mesmerizing. Marion Cotillard 10, rest of ensemble 9, movie 8. Watched it on the plane and later rented the DVD and on rewatching admired the feel and the flow of movie even more. Think the non-linear telling makes it a better movie.

Totally engrossing. The audience stood and applauded at the end. Marion Cotillard was excellent. One of the finest film experiences I have ever had. And the directing and editing were very effective. You came to understand the pitiful, wasted life of this artist who rode so high but could not shake her drug and alcohol problems or her roots. Like Janis Joplin, her body only lasted into her early forties. The movie tells the story so faithfully, sadly, unfortunately. But so elegantly. Certainly worthy of nomination.… Expand

fitting an entire life into a film is impossible. and so with that i say the editing and storyline was bold and courageous. at the expense of having the viewer keep up with the timeline, the movie gave life to the deep tragedies her voice carried in her songs.

C'etait magnifique!!!! The story was incredible and Marion Cotillard even more so. Bravo!!!

This movie is a complete mess, and I am appalled at the user reviews, claiming otherwise. I love Piaf and the music, but this film is a sad disappointment.

If you see this film you will remember it for a long, long time not only for the superb acting by Marion Cotillard but for the songs of Edit Piaf. It

A great movie! Its dream like sequence presumes that the audience is either familiar with Edith's life or will be motivated to find out more after the movie. The random sequence is untidy but quite original and works well in this case. Biopics that start at the end like "Evita" are no longer that original. Marion Cotillard makes you believe that she is Edith. My only complaint is that the movies does overdramatize an already difficult life when it did not need to. I for one would not call Edith's life a tragic one, but one filled with tremendous highs and loves, in addititon to shattering and tragic lows. Of note, Edith was surrounded by people who truly cared about her and she died in the arms of a much younger second husband who catered to her every need. Unlike many tragic figures, she did not die alone.… Expand

I highly recommend this movie, but it is long and because the storyline kind of flash forward and backward a bit too much, it can get confusing at times (a lot of the time leaping took place between her late 20s and early 30s, therefore her looks didn't change very much so it gets hard to get the sequence right, the fact that I had to read the caption doesn't help but it's my fault for not understanding French!! Because of the length bring a cushion with you if you can (I was in a cinema with well worn seats that resemble recliners, I had to crane my neck throughout that 140 minutes in order to watch the movie and not the cinema's ceiling). I am going to watch it again this week with a seat at the back (so that it is easier to read the caption while watching the rest of the screen) and a cushion.… Expand

Nicle Kidman played Virginia Woolf, Charlize Theron played Aileen Wournos, Reese Witherspoon played June Carter Cash, Helen Mirren played Queen Elizabeth and they won 4 of the last 5 Best Actress Oscars for playing famous women,with that in mind, go ahead and engrave Marion Cotillard's name on the 2007 Best Actress Oscar because she not only plays Edith Piaf in Le Vie En Rose, she actually becomes Edith Piaf! It just may be the first case of a true channeling ever captured on film. It is, without a doubt, without a flaw and without an asterick, one of the five greatest female performances ever put on film! Bravo, little sparrow, Bravo.… Expand

Tremendous movie worthy of OSCAR consideration for Marion Cotillard who is simply superb as the late Edith Piaf. I am at a loss to understand why this film is not in wider release. It is a work of art and should not be missed. A perfect 10!

I thought this film was fantastic, and am perplexed by the reviews. Marrion Cotillard's performance as Edith Piaf was astonishing, harrowing, and the film was constructed in a way as to symbolize the various complexities that made Edith the truly unique star that she was. This film is great for anyone who appreciates the triumph of spirit over inconceivable odds. Extraordinary.

It may be non-linear on purpose, but 140 minutes of artistic flashbacks with few fact clarifying scenes makes this movie a bear to watch. The acting is great though and for anyone having grown up in France during that period, the "chansons" of Edith Piaf are deeply nostalgic.

Roughly 20 years ago, Clint Eastwood excoriated the performances of Jessica Lange and Kim Stanley in 1982's biopic of star-crossed actress Frances Farmer, Frances, citing them as prime examples of just the kind of overblown histrionics that critics and Academy Award voters traditionally get suckered in by. Clint was wrong as far as that particular case was concerned, but his comments have proven to be notably instructive in light of the universal acclaim--adulation, even--that Marion Cotillard has received for her shrill, one-note, nails-on-the-blackboard portrayal of legendary chanteuse Edith Piaf; put simply, it's the most overrated acting work so far this year in service of what is arguably the most overrated movie so far this year. Richard Roeper and others have gone so far as to call upon the Academy to just dispense with the calendar and hand Cotillard the Best Actress Oscar right now, but thankfully we've still got several months of unknown competitive possibilities ahead of us. (It's a shame, though, that while Cotillard is a virtual shoo-in for a nomination, such infinitely richer, subtler, more nuanced work by Keri Russell in Waitress, Molly Shannon in Year of the Dog, and perhaps even Julie Christie, eschewing Lifetime-movie-of-the-week shorthand as an Alzheimer's patient in Away From Her, are probable longshots.) Cotillard gets to do everything that the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences traditionally likes to see in its favorite performances: scream at people, suffer alcohol AND drug addiction, scream again, sing, scream some more, be physically incapacitated, wear a ton of old-age makeup and die an on-screen death that seems to take nearly as long as Piaf's REAL demise did. What Cotillard DOESN'T do (except in a very few scenes with her lover and, near the end of her life, a reporter) is infuse her character with much variety or sympathy, athough to be completely fair to Cotillard, writer-director Olivier Dahan, who wallows in tragedy and degradation with at least as much gusto as Eli Roth and Roland Joffe do in their recent examples of torture porn, doesn't give her much of a chance. No, we don't want to go back to those sanitized showbiz biopics of the 1940s, in which Lorenz Hart and Cole Porter's sexual preferences couldn't ne honestly depicted (or even mentioned), and you could well argue that Edith Piaf wasn't a very nice person anyway, so why shouldn't her movie biography reflect this? I'd counter that musical icons Ray Charles and Johnny Cash were also very deeply flawed individuals, but that Jamie Foxx and Joaquin Phoenix (and the makers of Ray and Walk the Line) infused them with moments of warmth, decency and humanity without at all compromising or whitewashing their darker sides. At the very least, La Vie en Rose could showcase the vocal talent that made "The Little Sparrow" so passionately loved on both sides of the ocean, but Dahan perversely doesn't even let us hear her sing her way to the top in one key montage sequence--just one of many irritants to be found in his endlessly annoying 52-Pick-Up flashback structure. (He does, however, take great glee in having her collapse onstage not once, but twice.) The superb period set design, art direction and costuming is absolutely unassailable, and in most other instances would demand a big screen viewing in spite of all the aforementioned flaws, but this astonishingly, bullyingly unpleasant film qualifies as a rarity among rarities: a musical that, if seen at all, is best suited for a DVD rental...with the sound turned all the way down.… Expand

i'm not sure if the construction of the history was the best, but for me it was good enough; but what mezemerize me the most is the exceptional performance of Cotillard.

The jumpy editing ruined it for me; it kicked me right out of the movie and prevented real involvement in, and caring about, the main character. And Why did the movie skip over the years of WWII? I hope in future someone makes a good movie about Edith Piaf. She's an interesting subject and deserves a well-done film bio. This isn't it.

Marion Cotillard's performance is one of the most electrifying, totally committed tours de force I've ever seen; astonishing, riveting, and utterly haunting. The film that contains it is harrowing to watch, bleak and dark (as well as quite beautiful), relentless and perhaps over-long...but it is also a fever-dream and a work of art, that makes no judgment on, and draws no easy conclusions about, an extraordinary, and extraordinarily brief and tragic, life. I dare you to look away.… Expand

I saw this film a few days ago and am still riveted by it. Marion Cotillard's performance is extraordinary, I have never seen an actress encompass a role so completely. Although harrowing at times; the combination of story, cinematography, music and performance makes the experience well worth while. This one is a keeper for the ages.

Very enjoyable biopic. **SPOILERS** The time-shifting gets a distractingly aggressive; a generous interpretation would be that the more rapid jumps between shorter snippets is brought to a crescendo in the final flash of her life before her eyes. The music is incorporated well and it was a relief to see many circumstances where the overdub of Piaf recordings was not forced into an obligatory lip-sync. Some of the imagery/transitions were delightfully clever. Cotillard does a good job, despite appearing to be a stage actress caught on film. The overall effect is worth it.… Collapse

Marion Cotillard's sensitive portrayal of Edith Piaf is truly one of the most affecting and devastating performances in cinema history, as powerful and moving as any I have ever seen. I have a BA in drama, have seen countless thousands of films and this movie shook me to my core. Anyone who wants to be an actor should watch this film and see what it is all about. This is the top of Mt. Everest, the pinnacle of what is possible, what goes beyond acting to the realm of truly being, to channeling the soul of another and letting it possess you completely. Few portraits have ever been so utterly true. Marion Cotillard is the greatest actress of her generation.… Expand

Academy award performance! Giulietta Massina revisited. Outstanding production. 10 minutes too long.

Beautiful, compelling, perfect acting (Oscar caliber), capturing.

I don't typically attack other postings in my review, but the fact that 'advance scout team' guy Mark B. spent such a great deal of effort degrading Cotilllard's brilliant performance is baffling to me. This movie was extraordinarily well made, and Cotillard's performance is impeccable. This is the stuff of legends. Great film.

A wonderful performance from Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf.
With a strong supporting cast, the film keeps your attention for the whole 2 & a half hours.
The incidental music is superb, so much that I bought the soundtrack.

Since I saw Marion Cotillard in the movie '' Inception '', I became a fan, because she's such a beautiful and talented actress. After I found out she won an Oscar for this movie, I had to see it. '' La vie en rose '' (original title is '' La môme '' ) is a captivating, entertaining and melancholic movie. It's the first time that I really felt sad for a character. Marion delivered such an amazing performance, that I couldn't even recognized her. She totally deserved that Oscar. It's the kind of movie that a teacher will make the students watch in class for an educational purpose. Well, it would have been the best. I enjoyed it and I had no problem understanding (okay okay, I speck french, sorry for putting it in your face). What I mean is, it's better to see it in the original language. Because if you see it with english subtitles, or if it's translated in english, it won't be necessarily the same thing (emotions, effect, plus it doesn't always translate expressions correctly). Anyway, french or not, you can still be amazed by this film. The cinematography is wonderful. The filmmakers did a good job for creating the ambiance from approximately 1920 to 1963. Of course, it also has some great classic songs. I wish I knew Marion Cotillard earlier, but I'm glad that I had the chance to see it. If you're a fan of dramas or melancholy, this movie is for you.… Expand

Marion Cotillard is absolutely captivating in her innocent and arrogant portrayal of The Little Sparrow. The slums of Paris are beautiful thanks to the rich music and character and song - while New York has never looked more glamorous than it does surrounding Edith Piaf. Watching La vie en Rose was like attending a marvellous art gallery that comes to life and sucks you in.
However, the film starts as many biographical features do; late in the career of the subject and with ominous signs of the impending downward spiral. We then cut to Edith's childhood and one can assume that what follows is her life and lead-up to the film's opening scene. Instead the film jumps to moments in her life that both precede and follow the opener with no discernible pattern. At first this seemed simply an artistic method of film making but eventually became a confusing maze of snippets of film, so much so that I began to wonder if the film was going to ever end - and when the final scenes did come, I found I wasn't quite ready for them.
Nevertheless, Cotillard's performance was without fault, the music is nothing short of beautiful and overall La vie en Rose is a very touching film.… Expand