I’m not generally one for writing lengthy reviews of films.

I’m not here to tell you the plot since either you’ll see the film and it will be pointless, or you won’t therefore don’t care. I don’t need to tell you what to think about the films in question, or explain them to you, since I doubt I’ve got to the heart of any matters more than you have. If a film takes me to explain it to you, it’s been pretty shoddily put together, or it’s obscurantist for obscurantism’s sake (I’m looking at you Lynch, stop hiding at the back).

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have much to tell you about this film. Marion Cotillard puts in a quite wonderful performance at Piaf, and is well-deserving of the number of awards she’s received for doing so. That said, the film itself is rather messy, there’s too little of Piaf’s music for anyone who would like to actually hear it and, well, I can think of more entertaining ways of spending a couple of hours.

Broadly, it’s not really a film worth wasting your time on. And I don’t need many words to tell you that.

**1/2