Coco Before Chanel

PG-13

9/25/20091h 50m

Theatrical (limited) Release (US)

~ Before she was France's famous mademoiselle… ~

Overview:

Several years after leaving the orphanage, to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar. She's both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing.

Director:

Anne Fontaine

Status:

Released

Language:

French

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

based on novel or book
based on true story
fashion designer
wealth
period drama
social status
woman director
1900s
belle epoque
1890s

Cast

Audrey Tautou

~ as ~

Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel

Benoît Poelvoorde

~ as ~

Étienne Balsan

Alessandro Nivola

~ as ~

Arthur 'Boy' Capel

Marie Gillain

~ as ~

Adrienne Chanel

Emmanuelle Devos

~ as ~

Émilienne d'Alençon

Régis Royer

~ as ~

Alec, Jockey

Étienne Bartholomeus

~ as ~

Balsan Butler

Yan Duffas

~ as ~

Maurice de Nexon

Fabien Béhar

~ as ~

Shop Boss

Roch Leibovici

~ as ~

Jean, Groom

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

CinemaSerf
Written 1 year(s) ago
6
Audrey Tautou is actually quite impressive here as the legendary French designer, but the rest of this rather blandly photographed melodrama is really more about her love life than her career. She's born Gabrielle and having left the orphanage in which she was abandoned with sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain), takes a job as a seamstress and supplements that with some cabaret work. Clearly she has skill - at both, but it's her charms at the latter that interest the wealthy Baron Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde). His name and association opens many doors for this aspiring woman but she tends to look upon him more, to his increasing chagrin, like a brother as she takes a shine to visiting British coal millionaire Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola) who agrees to fund her first millinery enterprise. Like so many of these rags-to-riches biopics, we spend way too long on the childhood and family dynamic before almost accidentally ending up at the how she got her break stuff. We hardly build at all on just how she became the woman she was. Those elements are sparingly portrayed and rushed leaving us with large parts of this drama delivering more of a Merchant Ivory style love triangle, peppered with some "House of Eliot" that has more of the soap than the salon to it. That said, Tautou rarely puts a foot wrong and does go some way to convince - despite the over scripting and underwhelming screenplay, and there's an hint of chemistry with Nivola too. It's fine, but sadly - nothing more, and it does little justice to Chanel as a woman or a brand.