I would describe the film as inspiring intense pity. The director was playing, not too successfully, with the time line, jumping back and forth across the different stages of her life. Still, I thougt the film, with its vivid images and superb acting, managed to convey the core essence of Piaf's tragic life.

As a child, Piaf was practically discarded by her parents and grew up among the prostitutes in her grandmother's bordello. At 14, she was reclaimed by her father, a street performer, who needed her as an assistant. What comes across about her childhood is a chaotic, insecure, unstable existence, among a group of equally insecure, expoilted, dispensable women. That aura of perpetual haze and pathetic vulnerability never quite leaves her, to her dying day. If anything, I think this is the great achievement of the film: that it manages to sustain her fragility and bewilderment, throughout her career, even as she enjoys world fame. It's almost like watching a Puccini opera, with the heartbreaking irresistibility of great beauty and profound sadness.

The actress who plays Piaf is prettier and taller than Piaf ever was, though she is made to look plain and haggard towards the end of her life. Piaf was very small and thin, a waif of a woman.

And of course, Paris is as much a character in this film as any of Piaf's entourage of loyal friends.