La Vie en Rose is a biography of Edith Piaf, a hugely popular French singer from the 30s to early 60s. The analogy I've seen most often is to Judy Garland. Piaf had enough tragedy in her life to fill three movies. Abandoned by her parents, raised in an brothel, blind for several years because of an illness, taken back by her father to work in a circus and as a street performer, working for a pimp (though not as a prostitute), a lover killed in a plane crash, a child who died of meningitis, three bad car crashes, morphine and alcohol addictions, liver cancer, and more. In spite of all of this she became France's most popular pop singer and an actress.
The film covers all of the above, but tells the story out of order. The beginning mostly tells her childhood but then it starts jumping forward and backward all over the place. It works thematically but it's hard to follow her story. It seems an odd choice as well that it completely leaves out World War II and Piaf performed for the Germans and was called a traitor for it and also supposedly worked with the resistance. The film ignores her acting career and doesn't really provide a sense of her success.
Marion Cotillard is amazing as Piaf. I had to look up if I'd seen her in anything else and was shocked to see her listed in A Good Year. She played the gorgeous young local girl that Russell Crowe fell for. Her transformation into the 4' 8" Piaf is more remarkable than the recent Oscar winning biographies of Truman Capote, Ray Charles, and June Carter; comparing more with Helen Mirren's role as Queen Elizabeth II.
The sets and costumes work well to suggest the time. The sound track is mostly Piaf's songs which also helps. There's a long tracking shot of her finding out of her lover's death that's really interesting and suggests the craziness of finding out such news.
The film is really undercut by it's structure, but the performance is spectacular. Here's a video clip of the real Edith Piaf:
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