Review: Coco Before Chanel (2009)

[Steve Rhodes]

COCO BEFORE CHANEL
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2009 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****):  **

COCO BEFORE CHANEL (COCO AVANT CHANEL), a droll and humorless story, tells 
us the background of a famous woman for whom smiling did not come easily or 
often.  A movie that could have been more clearly titled COCO CHANEL -- THE 
EARLY YEARS, it is a lifeless rendition of the early life of Gabrielle 
'Coco' Chanel before she became a famous fashion designer in Paris.

Audrey Tautou (AMELIE) plays Coco, who, we are told and shown, was a fashion 
anarchist from the beginning.  With an almost religious belief in the 
importance of simplicity, her creations for herself and others firmly 
eschewed flowers, feathers, and, most of all, the corsets that were 
considered essential for women in the late nineteenth century when Coco was 
starting her career.  Coco loved to ridicule dresses that were so tight that 
the women were not able to breathe properly.  For herself, she favored loose 
fitting, boyish clothes that were rather androgynous.

When we first meet Gabrielle, before she is given the nickname of Coco, she 
and her sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain) are working as seamstresses by day 
and waitresses and would-be nightclub singers by night.  At a glance, they 
look alike, except that Coco likes to wear checks while Adrienne prefers 
stripes.  While they both strive to make it in the world, they view life 
differently.  This is best shown in a scene one night in the tiny apartment 
which they share, as they do its only bed.  Before going to sleep, the 
hard-driven Coco admonishes her more romantically inclined sister that "love 
is best in fairy tales."

A sad, quiet character, Coco goes to live with Mr. Balsan (Benoit 
Poelvoorde), a wealthy aristocrat who treats her with equal measures of 
disdain and affection.  Since she isn't of his class, he likes to hide her 
when his rich friends come to party.  When she meets Arthur Capel 
(Alessandro Nivola), who goes by his nickname of Boy, he is reading a book 
that sounds designed for her -- "Contradictions: The Philosophy of Misery." 
Although they fall in love, they seem destined for unhappiness.

Coco's life is a headlong rush into a bizarre mixture of sadness and 
success.  Her love life is as consistently unsuccessful as we already know 
that her fashion designs will prove to be enormously successful.  In a brief 
epilogue, we watch a miserable Coco inspecting her models as she puts on 
what appears to be the showing of her first collection.

The net result is a movie that appears to be as clinically accurate as it is 
completely uninviting.  I stayed awake, but you might not.

COCO BEFORE CHANEL runs 1:45.  The film is in French with English subtitles. 
It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content and smoking" and would be acceptable 
for kids around 8 and up.

The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 2, 2009. 
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the Cinemark Theaters and the 
Camera Cinemas.

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