Coco avant Chanel (Coco Before Chanel)
2009
**½
Director: Anne Fontaine
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos
This French drama about Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel concentrates on the years before she became the fashion icon. In her early 20s, she becomes a kept woman to a wealthy Frenchman. At his chateau, Coco, already equipped with a strong sense of style, plants the first seeds of her clothing career by designing hats. Anne Fontaine's odd biopic provides an unsentimental portrayal of bourgeois decadence in the turn of the century, but the film is never terribly interesting. It stretches a minor biographical footnote to feature length, and it's difficult to decide whether to love or loathe its heroine. Coco is portrayed as a progressive maverick who refuses to marry to wealth, yet she's a willing courtesan to not one but two different wealthy men, and her tragic romance fails to tug at the heartstrings. She is also determined to work and make her own fortune, yet all we see is a grumpy, indecisive and opportunistic moocher.
