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Apr 18, 2017Nursebob rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
Celebrated couturier Gabriel Bonheur aka “Coco Chanel” (1883 - 1971) was a pioneer on at least two levels—she was the first female to make a dent in what was then a male-dominated profession and her edgy sense of style practically defined women’s haute couture for decades. She was also an ambitious businesswoman and patron of the arts who courted some scandal during WWII for her dalliances with the German occupiers. But watching Anne Fontaine’s drab, lifeless biopic you get the impression of a mousy depressive with a taste for straw hats and unavailable men who stumbled upon fashion design when she was bored one afternoon. Beginning with a ten-year old Gabriel and her sister being dropped off at an orphanage by their penniless father, and then proceeding through her early years as a saloon singer, seamstress, and mistress to a boorish millionaire before ending on a lavish mirrored runway, Fontaine offers little insight and no emotional connection whatsoever but rather gives us a pedestrian Masterpiece Theatre rendering of an enigmatic person whose legacy certainly deserved more than a cursory melodrama. Lead actress Audrey Tautou (Amélie) does bear an uncanny resemblance to Chanel but aside from a few fierce words and that permanent scowl her performance lacks the fire one would expect from a woman who seemingly broke taboos as casually as she hemmed a skirt—in an age where appearances meant everything she took on more than one lover and defied fashion conventions with her masculine togs. The rest of the cast offer up readings as lacklustre as the dull countryside cinematography—attempts to disparage France’s idle rich as a bunch of shallow deviants elicit little more than a yawn and Coco’s “passionate” affair with a British opportunist not even that—but at least Catherine Leterrier’s Oscar-nominated costume designs add a splash of much needed colour and sophistication.