La Vie En Rose (2007)

France and the U.S.; 1918-1963

Marion Cotillard should be Oscar nominated for her portrait of French singer Edith Paif in this effective bio-pic. The movie is concentrated despair, it seems little that was not sad happened in her brief 47 years of life, the last four spent in ever increasing levels of bodily decay following a collapse onstage in New York in 1959. While the film goes through a slow period about an hour in, and tragically skips over most the second World War era, its still a powerful piece of work, owing to Cotillards conviction of performance and to some wonderfully composed sequences, most notably Paifs debut at 'the music hall' and her death sequence. I have to get this soundtrack.