Marion Cotillard offers an exceptional performance as France’s legendary Edith Piaf. Although the lengthy biopic avoids one of the singer’s most interesting periods, when she lived in occupied France during the second world war, it does trace her dramatic story from her impoverished childhood to a showbiz career mired by insecurity, drug abuse and lost love. Cotillard’s electrifying turn secured her an Oscar for Best Actress, and it’s not hard to see why.