La Vie en Rose: B+

The best thing I can say about La Vie en Rose, Olivier Dahan's madly overripe fantasia of a biopic about Edith Piaf, is that Marion Cotillard - the actress embodying "The Little Sparrow of Paris" - makes all the swirling, impressionistic passion at Rose's core work; the flip-side of that same coin (and what can occasionally make Dahan's film a semi-frustrating mess) is that events, characters, and chronology never seem to quite link up. The story of Piaf, a slight women who peaked quickly as the most mighty of songbirds in the '40s and '50s, is reduced from an epic examination of emotional ruin to a story of three seperate characters - Young Edith, Famous Edith, and Old Edith.

But, again, each is portrayed by Cotillard at her most virtuostic and, aside from that, Olivier Dahan, as writer-director, has an ability to stage singular scenes of impact and grace; together, the two talents make Piaf's life a felt presence in the audience. They turn her tale of uplift - from the streets; from a brothel; from her parents at varying intervals of childhood - and souful ruin into a film worthy of reciprocating Piaf's unforgettable nature: cascading, crushing, fanatically romantic, and mournful.

Each of these sentiments are revealed and flurished during different periods of the film; what connects them is a technique Dahan displays throughout the movie: a bizarrely, and ill-advisedly, utilized time-leap (from upstart to Diva, from Diva to cripple). But what makes them powerful, memorable, instead of isolated and stale, is in the strength of the director's staging. For example: about half-way through the film there is a fantastic scene where Madame Piaf, newly minted as the latest musical diva, strolls through her lush and massive apartment barking orders - the camera following her in swooping, grand takes - and you can practically feel her haughty delight at her new station in life.

Another magnificent feat is the final sequence, wherein three monumental events of Piaf's life - her final interview, on the shore's of France; her final performance, where she debuted the definatly introspective "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" (translation: No, I Have No Regrets); and her final night, where she spills her heart to her live-in nurse, a smile of contentment accompanying her revelations - are spliced together, creating a swirling cocktail of heartache, defiance, and joy.

This trifecta, I think, is at the core of La Vie en Rose. The flaw with such truth is that these emotions weren't all there is to a singer who was declared throughout her career as the "Soul of Paris" (and who's voice could crush mountains); and the people and connections she made in real life were never meant to be so trivialized and mashed together into such an unmemorable tangle of names and faces. Still, she was at her root a women where passion and tragedy became one; where her very nature is cemented in sadness becoming radiant and happiness becoming grief. Olivier Dahan and Marion Cotillard strive their hardest to capture this elusive and messy personality and triumphantly they suceed.