Sony Pictures Classics | France | 105 mins
As one of this year’s most highly anticipated films to reach the box office from France, Anne Fontaine’s latest feature film will both enchant and disappoint its audience. The witty yet slow moving script attempts with only limited success to piece together the missing facts surrounding the early life of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. Even with a flawless Audrey Tautou taking the lead, Coco Before Chanel fails to reproduce the inspiring impact Chanel had upon generations of women.
We first meet Chanel and her sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain) as children living in the French countryside in the late nineteenth century. Grieving after the death of his wife, their father dumps them at an orphanage and never returns. Without much exposition, time passes and they become young women who have turned to singing frivolous songs in bars to earn money. The fierce energy that Tautou brings to these scenes lifts the veil that has shrouded Chanel’s adolescent self from the history books. Though she is as feisty and vivacious as one would expect, Chanel’s feminist flair has yet to develop. Her reliance on her sugar daddy Etienne Balsan, played by a charming Benoit Poelvoorde, reveals a flaw which propels the film through a series of mildly tense moments.
Fontaine’s witty lines for Chanel, and at times Balsan, give the characters an unforgettable touch that seems to elude the plot. The most notable was Chanel’s opinion on same sex relationships, which managed to sum up in one line how liberal she really was. It is with much disappointment that the film does not travel beyond Chanel’s young life as a fashion designer – her cleverness would have only grown with maturity.
Chanel’s styling experiments truly begin when she starts to fashion her clothes after Balsan’s shirts and trousers. Interesting and humorous as it is, Fontaine chose, to the detriment of the film, to focus on Chanel’s internal struggle between feminism and femininity.
Imposing on Balsan’s hospitality Chanel refuses to leave his country estate, and becomes his mistress while she continues to develop her simple clothing style. Despite insisting that she wishes to remain unmarried, Chanel is prone to becoming attached to men. Giving the film some meat, she falls in love with an Englishman, “Boy” Capel (Alessandro Nivola), who takes an interest in her intellect and simple yet elegant outfits. Nevertheless, after the drawn out illustration of Chanel’s quiet life in the countryside with her benefactor, Fontaine’s script still lacks the necessary drama to retain the energy of its beginning.
Even with little activity, Coco Before Chanel stays true to the tradition of the biopic period drama. The cinematography is picturesque with both the pretty French countryside and bustling streets of Paris helping to create an interesting contrast between Gabrielle Chanel the mistress and Coco Chanel the designer.
Audrey Tautou is mesmerizing in her ability to capture Chanel’s two contradictory personalities without the slightest hint of irregularity. Joining her graceful independence and romantic sensibility whilst bearing an uncanny resemblance to the late Chanel, Tautou is the highlight of the film.
Coco Before Chanel lacks the necessary sparkle for a biopic of one of history’s greatest designers, but if only for the beauty of the cinematography and the talented ability of Audrey Tautou, it is worth seeing Chanel just once.
6.5 out of 10
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