Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos,
Etienne Bartholemeus, Régis Royer, Yan Duffas, Fabien Béhar | Written by Anne & Camille Fontaine
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 106 minutes | Directed by Anne Fontaine
Biopics are by their very nature tricky things to get right. Unless the story of the protagonist is truly astonishing or filmic there are inevitably complaints either about its veracity or its appeal. In the case of Coco Before Chanel, there is a case to be made that it is neither entirely truthful nor terribly interesting.
According to the film, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (Tautou) and her sister Adrienne (Gillain) were effectively abandoned by their father at the age of 10 and left to grow up in an orphanage. On reaching adulthood, the sisters work in a dressmaker’s by day and sing in a saloon bar by night. Keen to make their fortune in Paris, Coco finds a route in only for Adrienne to announce that she is getting married, sending the plan out of the window. Determined to get to Paris somehow, Coco invites herself to the stately home of well-to-do Etienne Balsan (Poelvoorde) where she meets dashing English gent Arthur "Boy" Capel (Nivola).
As you might reasonably expect in a film about one of the most significant names in fashion, this is a sumptuous looking production with elegant sets and excellent period costume detail. The story of the film focuses largely on Coco’s life and journey to successful fashion queen and only occasionally shows her chalking and scissoring up material which is probably just as well, because for all the beauty of her outfits, the creation of fashion itself is not much of a spectator sport.
The plot is rarely much more than mildly diverting but perhaps the biggest problem is with Tautou’s Chanel. Her performance is excellent and quite a departure from her usual coquettish naivety, but essentially the character of Coco is very hard to like. Sure, she’s determined, hard-working, single-minded and ballsy in an age when women were supposed to be nothing of the kind. But she’s also spoilt, ungrateful and capricious most of the time so it’s very difficult to have any sympathy for her despite her difficult upbringing. And when you’re not really rooting for the main protagonist, that only leaves the story. So while it looks good and the actors all do their jobs perfectly well it just left me idly wondering whether this really ought to have been titled Who Wants To Be A Milliner?
EXTRAS ** An audio commentary with co-writer/director Anne Fontaine, a making-of featurette and interviews with Fontaine and Tatou ... for a Blu-ray disc, that bonus package is a little merde.