I was desperate to see "La Vie en Rose" so that I could experience something similar to what it must have been like to see Edith Piaf perform.  I was in it for the tour-de-force performance by Marion Cotillard - I wanted to see this woman stretched to the very limits of her humanity in her attempt to portray one of the most tragic and interesting popular figures of the 20th century.  

 I was also in it for the music.  The title song, "la vie en rose" is Piaf's most famous ballad and one of my favorite songs of all time.  The first few lilting notes make me giddily romantic and wistful for the 1940's.  Piaf's voice is incredibly distinct - her vibrato always uncontrolled, emotive, and bare. 

The movie disappointed me.  I wish the story had focused more on her voice, her magnetism, and less on her almost comicly tragic life story.  Yes, Marion Cotillard was luminous, but the movie was too much a movie - apart from Cotillard's performance there was little that was visceral, human, or developed.  

The film attempted to give us the life behind the voice, lingering on Piaf's childhood traumas and even delving briefly into her daughter's death by meningitis.  While this is clearly a noble, natural angle for a film to take, I was left wanting more Edith and less back story. I wanted to just bask in her voice for a few hours - not find out how much she sacrificed to bring me this music.