There are at least two ways to think about the welcome arrival of “Coco Before Chanel,” starring Audrey Tautou as the woman whose pet name became synonymous with couture. Each proves more than satisfying.
First, “Coco” stands in the well-heeled company of “The September Issue.”
The recently released documentary about Vogue’s editor in chief, Anna Wintour, was so finely crafted, so entertaining, so persuasive that it insists the skeptics among us reconsider the importance of fashion.
French director Anne Fontaine takes seriously the skills of Gabrielle Chanel, the orphan whose rough upbringing shaped her inventive designs. The life depicted in “Coco Before Chanel” is one of hardship, hard work and survival instincts. It fashioned a genius.
The biopic also joins two recent dramas featuring willful heroines: Jane Campion’s story-poem-bio “Bright Star,” about poet John Keats’ muse Fanny Brawne; and Lone Scherfig’s “An Education,” the memoir- based tale of a young woman whose plans of attending Oxford are upended by an older suitor. (It opens Oct. 23.)
“Coco Before Chanel” is elegantly crafted, fluid entertainment. Tautou’s wide-eyed beauty suggests how easily this could have been a role for the other Audrey — Hepburn. (Katharine Hepburn portrayed Chanel on stage in 1969.)
Yet, more than in her other performances, Tautou proves tough here. Coco is not conniving, but she is clear-eyed. She learns to be a seamstress at a convent school. Working by day in a stocking factory, she and her sister (Marie Gillain) appear on stage at night.
Coco and racehorse owner Étienne Balsan meet tartly at the cabaret where the sisters perform. Consider it whetted repartee at first sight.
There’s a pleasing frankness to their relationship, not least because actor Benoît Poelvoorde balances his character’s arrogance with something vaguely vulnerable. Their liaison isn’t dangerous so much as pragmatic — and charged.
When her sister goes to the country to wait out her lover’s glacial departure from his wife, Coco considers her naive.
Coco’s own arrival at Balsan’s estate is as amusingly awkward as it is bold. Her lack of easy sentiment doesn’t prevent audiences from forming attachments, not only to this scrappy survivor, but also to her friends (like the courtesan Emilienne) and lovers.
Arthur “Boy” Capel (Alessandro Nivola) arrives at Balsan’s estate. Of course, the unsentimental can be smitten. She falls for him.
Tautou’s sophisticated portrayal won’t allow viewers to dismiss Coco as kept. Coco’s talents are too pronounced, her approach to intimacy, to life, too aware for that.
In the midst of the movie’s romantic intrigue, Fontaine continuously shows how Coco the outsider, the astute observer of another class, rejected the fashion dos and definitely don’ts of that class and innovated.
This is a vivid portrait of a woman of a particular time nudging that moment — not just fashion — forward.
“COCO BEFORE CHANEL.”
PG-13 for sexual content and smoking. 1 hour, 50 minutes. Directed by Anne Fontaine; written by Fontaine and Camille Fontaine, with Christopher Hampton and Jacques Fieschi; from the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux; photography by Christophe Beaucarne; starring Audrey Tautou, Alessandro Nivola, Benoît Poelvoorde, Emmanuelle Devos, Marie Gillain. Opens today at the Chez Artiste.
