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Director: Anne Fontaine
Cast: Audrey Tautou, Alessandro Nivola, Benoît Poelvoorde, Marie Gillain, Emmanuelle Devos
Run Time: 108 minutes
Country: France
Year: 2009
Language: French with English subtitles
Rating: PG (Sexually suggestive scene)
A charming and intimate look at the early years of the
iconic French designer Coco Chanel, Coco Before Chanel has
something for everyone: spectacle, stunning period detail
and an outstanding performance by Audrey Tautou (A Very
Long Engagement, Amélie) as the headstrong title character.
Shunning cliché and sentimentality while sensitively exploring
this fascinating personality, the film takes the standard
biopic and stretches it in imaginative new directions.
Focusing on Chanel’s formative years before the First
World War, director Anne Fontaine (The Girl from Monaco)
follows the fashion prodigy’s movement from a humble, impoverished
background all the way to the halls of Parisian
haute couture. The young Gabrielle, or Coco as she soon
became known, spends her days as a seamstress and her
nights as a cabaret entertainer, where she catches the eye
of the wealthy playboy Etienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde,
Man Bites Dog). Before long, she moves to his country
estate to serve as his friend, lover and in-house style
consultant. Caught in a lavish world where women indulge
themselves to excess, she begins experimenting with clothing
and designing outfits that are flatteringly simple. Soon
thereafter she catches the eye of the Englishman Boy
Capel (Alessandro Nivola, June Bug, Mansfield Park), a pal of
Balsan’s, who immediately charms Coco and encourages her
to use her talent and strike out on her own.
For a film that is, after all, about fashion, Fontaine is
most concerned with showing how Coco became Chanel:
how a young woman with no money or resources other
than a gifted eye and forthright manner became one of the
most legendary figures in contemporary fashion. Wonderfully
shot and acted, with a keen sense of time and place,
Coco Before Chanel is as impressive as it is intelligent.
“The blossoming of her ambition, as much as her love life,
drives the story forward, and turns Coco Before Chanel into
a costume drama worthy of the name.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Reviews: www.metacritic.com/film/titles/cocobeforechanel
Official Site: www.sonyclassics.com/cocobeforechanel/
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