This is of course the Edith Piaf biopic that saw Marion Cotillard win the Best Actress Oscar this year, the first win for an actress speaking in a foreign language for 4 decades. The win was more than deserving - it's a terrific turn in which she manages to inhabit a character so convincingly regardless of whether she's playing her in her 20s or late 40s. This may not be the stretch it sounds, but when Piaf died at the age of 48, she inhabited a body that wouldn't have been out of place in that of an 80 year old. Ravaged by arthritis, addicted to drugs, alcohol and audiences and plagued by heartache and sorrow, Piaf's turbulent last few years are hauntingly portrayed by the 34 year old Cotillard who truly gives an extraordinary performance. So often, Oscar rewards actors for playing real people simply by doing a great impression of them. Cate Blanchett is a terrific actress but in no way shape or form did she deserve an Oscar for her extended impression, albeit a good one, of Kathryn Hepburn. The level of difficulty was tiny compared to someone having to create a character from scratch, with mannerisms a voice and an emotional complexity that no-one has seen before. However every so often Oscar get it right and their love for 'real life portrayals' isn't misguided. This is one of those times.
The film itself drew some criticism - indeed many critics suggested Cotillard carried it. I'm not totally convinced by this. The narrative is chopped up so much it's as if the script was thrown into a blender and the scenes pieced together in no particular order. Indeed it makes Alejandro González Iñárritu's films, with their characteristic timelines that whip back and forth, look positively linear. Much of this is designed to convey Piaf's disintegrating mind, where associations, memories and even dreams start to take hold of her life. She is frustrated by not being able to recall the memories she wants to, instead remembering things she'd like to forget. But is the film's structure a flaw? I'm not sure it is. It does mean that scenes that would be more poignant later on, are thrust upon us earlier, without us being able to see Piaf's startling decline. I wonder whether it would have been more effective if it had played out in a more straightforward chronology, but I don't think it is a serious flaw.
Perhaps more of a problem is that so much of Piaf life is covered, that few strands or moments can be dealt with in much detail. We flash forward or back so quickly that we never really get to spend much time in the moment. Quite momentous events in Piaf's life a fleetingly shown, and I think the film would be better had the director had not been quite so ambitious from the get go.
There is no denying however that Cotillard is far and away the best thing about the film. Her performance lands her in second place on my 2007 list, just behind Tang Wei, but on another day I could quite easily see myself reversing their spots. The film ends with a captivating rendition of Je Ne Regret Rien. It's poignant and captivating and the perfect way to end a film that may have its flaws, but one that features a star-making turn.
