Coco Before Chanel (2009)

Why so much hype?

Too much of everything

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Gabrielle Chanel (Audrey Tautou) was abandoned by her father to an orphanage in 1893 after her mother's death. Fifteen years later, she's performing with Adrienne at a moulin cafe gaining the nickname Coco. In her day job, she's a seamstress. Her ambition to perform is stymied and she becomes the mistress of wealthy customer Étienne Balsan. She grows frustrated as his kept woman and falls for his friend Boy Capel. The fashion of the day are corsets, big dresses, and bigger hats. Chanel never fits that style but has her own sophisticated modernity.The movie looks beautiful. The designs are well made. Tautou's performance is restrained. They need to explain her childhood and early life more completely. It's hard to find the feelings early on. Chanel and Capel seems to have an one-note love-at-first-sight romance. The drama is lacking. The movie mostly falls flat except when fashion gets a mention. Her fashion business journey would probably be better material for a movie. This is lackluster drama.

Fascinating story. Chanel's designs were simple and elegant. I love Chanel No. 5; it is my favorite perfume. It is worth every penny of the cost. I enjoyed this movie. Coco wanted to be in charge of her life. She did not mind having a few men help her. Besides, men always have more money than women, anyway. She seemed to have more brains than they did, however. I saw the other movie about her, where she hooks up with Igor Stravinsky. In this movie, she was a very hard worker who knew how she wanted her fashions to turn out. She was very exacting. Her hats were beautiful. She was stark in her criticisms of the popular frou frou fashions of the day. She showed that one can believe in one's talents, provide a needed service, and make money that makes up for all of the hard work and dedication.

To be frank, this biographic film about legendary Gabrielle Chanel is disappointedly plain and perfunctory although it has a Chanelesque panache in its appearance and hardware. For me the dialogue is poorly written, full of clichés which could be easily eavesdropped during any cheap romantic chick flick. As it is a film about Chanel (especially as the title itself suggests that it's a film about her life before global success), the importance is to underline the uniqueness inside her which would bring her the later prestige fame, unfortunately the payoff of the film is her two bog- standard relationship both as a mistress, which eludes the most intriguing question, how could she manage to infuse her offbeat talent into the fashion business at her time? The film skimps a larger portion of it (which we could only witness from her intermittent scenes with Emilienne, an underperformed Emmanuelle Devos).Audrey Tautou did a great job to showcase Coco's pride and fragile in the same shot, as for two supporting lovers, Alessandro Nivola is handsome enough, but with a rather wooden performance, the chemistry between the lovebirds is far from convincing, which directly hampers the whole keynote of the film and demotes Coco's personal mien as well. On the contrary the ordinary-looking Benoit Poelvoorde deserves more recognition for his rough but more empathized interpretation as the rich womanizer, Baron Balsan. The fancy costumes of the film are worth appraising and it doesn't matter if you are in fashion business or not. But we are not watching a documentary or a fashion show, it is beyond its power to save the film itself from being a mediocre one.

Fascinating cinematography and beautiful soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat... Other than these 2, every element in the movie makes you say 'yeah.. not bad' If she had a more extravagant, terribly adventurous life, one could definitely enjoy watching Chanel's childhood and early years as an eccentric young women. However there's not much to see and even Audrey Tautou's 'yeah...not bad' acting couldn't save it.The moment movie jumps to her later years as the fashion queen, and finish abruptly, you'll feel like you've slept and missed the fun part of the movie.. As a Chanel fan I'd like to see the 'Chanel after Coco' version from the same cast please:)...