COCO BEFORE CHANEL (105 PG-13)
REVIEW BY ANN HORNADAY, WASHINGTON POST
A truism about acting insists that it's all in the eyes; when it comes to the French actress Audrey Tautou, that means performances of alert sensuality and limpid, smoldering depth. She brings all her eyes have to bear on her role as the title character in
A truism about acting insists that it's all in the eyes; when it comes to the French actress Audrey Tautou, that means performances of alert sensuality and limpid, smoldering depth. She brings all her eyes have to bear on her role as the title character in COCO BEFORE CHANEL portraying the legendary fashion icon while still a young woman, not yet a designer and far from the extraordinarily successful businesswoman she would become.
This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.
As COCO BEFORE CHANEL opens, two young girls are being deposited by their father at an orphanage in France in the late 19th century. They are Gabrielle and Adrienne Chanel, who as grown women take up singing in cafes and pursuing wealthy men as a means of getting on in the world. During these sequences, "Coco Before Chanel" resembles the 2007 biopic "La Vie en Rose," and viewers may be forgiven for girding themselves for the tale of struggle and tragedy to come.
Thankfully, Chanel's story takes an entirely different turn, albeit one that doesn't entertain conventional notions of female empowerment. Her sister, Adrienne (Marie Gillain), pairs off with a wealthy boyfriend, while the prospect-free Gabrielle presents herself at the door of Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), a wealthy racehorse owner she befriended as a chanteuse. Living as a kept woman, Gabrielle -- nicknamed Coco for her trademark song -- alternately indulges and chafes at a lifestyle that entails being constantly available sexually yet kept out of sight when society comes calling.
Written and directed with sensitivity by Anne Fontaine, COCO BEFORE CHANEL presents its young protagonist not as the usual artist bursting to break free or thwarted genius. Instead, Chanel is portrayed as a canny observer whose eye for self-preservation is every bit as canny as her eye for sartorial detail. She's a fascinating contradiction: courtesan and androgyne; little girl lost and ambitious competitor; lover of luxury and austere, earthy rebel.
Viewers expecting a buffet of beautiful clothes in COCO BEFORE CHANEL may be disappointed. In these early days on Balsan's estate, Coco simultaneously exploits her sexuality and subverts it, dressing in simple, shapeless dresses and men's jodhpurs. When Balsan's female friends (and occasional lovers) visit, Coco loosens their stays, replacing their oversize, plumed hats ("suitable for a carnival") with simple straw toppers. It's a question of taste, of course, but as reflected in Coco's deep, serious eyes, it's also unmistakably a question of women's physical freedom and larger possibilities.
Tautou's performance is somber and un-showy; indeed she rarely smiles in COCO BEFORE CHANEL at least before Balsan's friend Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola) shows up and Coco embarks on the relationship that would launch her into brand-new territory, personally and professionally. "Coco Before Chanel" has it all -- striving, sensuality, romance and a bittersweet ending that turns out to be just the beginning.
portraying the legendary fashion icon while still a young woman, not yet a designer and far from the extraordinarily successful businesswoman she would become.
This refreshing alternative to the usual potted biopic provides an absorbing look at a singular, steely determination as it was forged and annealed, long before it made itself known to the world.
As COCO BEFORE CHANEL opens, two young girls are being deposited by their father at an orphanage in France in the late 19th century. They are Gabrielle and Adrienne Chanel, who as grown women take up singing in cafes and pursuing wealthy men as a means of getting on in the world. During these sequences, COCO BEFORE CHANEL resembles the 2007 biopic "La Vie en Rose," and viewers may be forgiven for girding themselves for the tale of struggle and tragedy to come.
Thankfully, Chanel's story takes an entirely different turn, albeit one that doesn't entertain conventional notions of female empowerment. Her sister, Adrienne (Marie Gillain), pairs off with a wealthy boyfriend, while the prospect-free Gabrielle presents herself at the door of Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), a wealthy racehorse owner she befriended as a chanteuse. Living as a kept woman, Gabrielle -- nicknamed Coco for her trademark song -- alternately indulges and chafes at a lifestyle that entails being constantly available sexually yet kept out of sight when society comes calling.
Written and directed with sensitivity by Anne Fontaine, COCO BEFORE CHANEL presents its young protagonist not as the usual artist bursting to break free or thwarted genius. Instead, Chanel is portrayed as a canny observer whose eye for self-preservation is every bit as canny as her eye for sartorial detail. She's a fascinating contradiction: courtesan and androgyne; little girl lost and ambitious competitor; lover of luxury and austere, earthy rebel.
Viewers expecting a buffet of beautiful clothes in COCO BEFORE CHANEL may be disappointed. In these early days on Balsan's estate, Coco simultaneously exploits her sexuality and subverts it, dressing in simple, shapeless dresses and men's jodhpurs. When Balsan's female friends (and occasional lovers) visit, Coco loosens their stays, replacing their oversize, plumed hats ("suitable for a carnival") with simple straw toppers. It's a question of taste, of course, but as reflected in Coco's deep, serious eyes, it's also unmistakably a question of women's physical freedom and larger possibilities.
Tautou's performance is somber and un-showy; indeed she rarely smiles in COCO BEFORE CHANEL at least before Balsan's friend Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola) shows up and Coco embarks on the relationship that would launch her into brand-new territory, personally and professionally. COCO BEFORE CHANEL has it all -- striving, sensuality, romance and a bittersweet ending that turns out to be just the beginning.
"For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France's Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the woman who inspired dozens of biographies by changing the shape of 20th century fashion, not that much is known for sure about her formative years.
"Chanel lied all the time. She used to say, 'I invented my life because I didn't like my life,' " Director Anne Fontaine has said, with Audrey Tautou adding, "Chanel always disguised the reality. It takes some cunning to know who Chanel really was."
Though Chanel's reticence may sound like a barrier to filmmakers, it stimulated co-writer and director Fontaine and star Tautou, who've combined to turn COCO BEFORE CHANEL into a superior filmed biography that brings intelligence, restraint and style to what could have been a more standard treatment.
The most obvious credit goes to the strong, sure performance of Tautou (Amélie). Tautou not only resembles Chanel, she inhabits the role completely, using flashing eyes and a relentless intelligence to convey the unbending strength of a woman determined to make something of her life in a time and place when that was far from the norm.
The decision to focus COCO on the fashion designer's formative years was made by Fontaine, who cast Tautou before the script was written. One of the most interesting of contemporary French directors, Fontaine's earlier films, particularly "Dry Cleaning" and "How I Killed My Father," brought empathy and tact to emotionally complex stories of troubled and troubling relationships.
Though COCO BEFORE CHANEL is much less edgy than those earlier films, it shares with them a sensitive interest in the destiny of society's outsiders. And no one was more outside the system than Gabrielle Chanel, born poor in rural France and, after her mother died, abandoned by her father to be brought up in an orphanage run by nuns. It's in the nature of COCO BEFORE CHANEL that we have the advantage over its subject: We know Chanel's career arc, her success at turning fashion almost inside out by creating clothes for women that allowed for movement and freedom. And the film uses that by letting us notice things, such as the unusual black and white habits of the Aubazine order that might have influenced the designer almost without her knowing it. After the orphanage years, we see Chanel around the turn of the century living with her sister Adrienne (the character, played by Marie Gillain, is a composite of Chanel's real life sister and aunt). Based in the town of Moulins, they are trying, without much success, to succeed as cabaret singers, though Chanel does acquire the nickname "Coco" after a famous song of the day.
Even in these early days, the key elements of Chanel's personality -- her sharp tongue and formidable will -- are present and accounted for. A gift for survival was one of this young Napoleon's strengths, though at the time neither she nor anyone else had any idea exactly what world she would be conquering.
Then, as often happens with ambitious folk, fate takes a hand in Chanel's life, not once, but several times. First she meets the wealthy horse fancier and playboy Etienne Balsan (the marvelous Belgian actor Benoit Poelvoorde) and ends up living in his chateau as his mistress.
Bored beyond measure and aghast at the way fashionable people dress, Chanel raids Balsan's closet to create clothes for herself. She also meets a popular stage actress (Emmanuelle Devos) who is so wild about the hats Chanel has designed for her own use she starts to wear them herself. Another friend of Balsan's who has an even bigger influence on Chanel is Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola), a wealthy Briton who so believed in her work he financed her first Paris shop. Capel was also the star-crossed love of Chanel's life, and her struggle to allow herself to feel an emotion she had refused to believe existed is one of the film's most interesting dynamics.
"I know how to express the present," Chanel liked to say, and showing us just how that expression took form and shape is the accomplishment of this satisfying film.
