The biopic was generously interspersed with Piaf’s distinct and expressive singing as wide-eyed Cotillard lip-synced when not portraying the singer’s troubled life. The Academy also recognised Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald’s efforts in creating Piaf’s looks—cancer-stricken, she appeared to be a pitiable shadow of her former self with scanty orange-hued hair and gaunt face—by presenting them with the Oscar for Best Makeup. In the Oscar race, it probably pays to be ugly, especially when so beautiful.

Despite numerous published biographies, much of Piaf’s life remains a mystery. Writer-director Olivier Dahan tries to unravel this in the 130-minute musical, which keeps moving back and forth in time, to a certain extent. Some episodes of her life like her two marriages are fuzzy. And political links, like the 1917-born artist’s resistance to the Nazi occupation, have been left out.

The film opens at the late middle of Piaf’s life (she died at the age of 47) when she was touring New York. The action then shifts to her childhood, which is very tenderly portrayed, when her father, a circus contortionist, takes her to a brothel run by his mother. She finds love and care in a prostitute there and even loses vision due to keratitis for a brief period.

Years later she is spotted by nightclub impresario Louis Lelpee (Gerard Depardieu) while singing on the streets of Paris. Lelpee gives the singer, born as Édith Giovanna Gassion, the name ‘Piaf’ (which means ‘sparrow’ in French). He is murdered, but not before Piaf finds success. The singer finds another mentor and later falls in love with boxer Marcel Cerdan. Though married, Cerdan is known to be the greatest love of her life.

In fact, the news of his death in a plane crash, while flying from New York City to Paris to meet her, makes way for one of the most poignant scenes. Cotillard excels here with the sheer show of raw emotion.