Couture: French-Speaking Angelina Jolie Anchors an Otherwise Thin Drama

By Kim Hughes

Rating: C

There is a lot of good intent and sizable ambition at play in French writer-director Alice Winocour’s new drama Couture, which premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival. But like the industry it observes, the film looks pretty but feels inconsequential.

Ostensibly about three women of divergent circumstances, each navigating life-changing events against the glittering (front-of-house) and gruelling (behind-the-scenes) backdrop of Paris Fashion Week, the film is mostly a showcase for a predictably dazzling Angelina Jolie, who performs in French and commands the camera if not the imagination.

Couture opens with Jolie’s Maxine landing in Paris, having been hired to create a gothic, moody video showcasing a fashion collection. Maxine admits she is an odd choice for the gig.

In a promotional interview, she describes herself as someone who directs low-budget indie horror films, one of which, featuring female vampires, caught the attention of the event’s artistic director.

When asked to describe what she thinks of fashion in two words, Maxine says “useless and necessary,” marshalling the spirit of Joan Rivers on Fashion Police but without the snappy punchline.

It’s soon evident that Maxine needs the job despite her ambivalence towards designer clothing. Divorce, a teenage daughter and a pending new production await back in the States, and all require cash.

But her focus is fast derailed by an urgent medical diagnosis; so urgent, treatment can’t wait until she returns home. She is instructed by her doctor to meet with a specialist (Vincent Lindon) in France. This will consume Maxine for the remainder of the film and it’s as draining to watch as it doubtless is to experience.

Meanwhile, in comes Ada (Anyier Anei in her feature film debut), a striking young African woman who plans to be a pharmacist but gets conscripted into modelling. Naïve and completely out of her depth in Paris — rather like Maxine, yet different — she is shacked up sorority-style with a pack of other young models who provide some guidance, not all of it wise, in how best to pilot through the fashion world.

Lastly, there is Angèle (Ella Rumpf) a makeup artist whose dreams of being a writer aren’t getting much traction, but who bonds, somewhat, with Ada. The lives of Maxine, Ada and Angèle are very loosely braided together by the currents of their surroundings, but the women’s situations and frustrations remain largely their own, and underdeveloped. At points, it feels like each character is appearing in a different film.

Couture benefits from committed performances, its pretty Paris location and from director Winocour’s rarefied access, shooting inside Atelier Chanel. The director is also typically adept at distilling and framing feminist perspective, perhaps most notably in Mustang from 2015 which she co-wrote, and Proxima from 2019, which she co-wrote and directed.

Not so much here. A small but engaging subplot concerns exhausted seamstress Christine (Garance Marillier), who meets a sympathetic Maxine early on and ends up working on a lynchpin garment modelled by Ada but gets none of the glory, only pinpricked fingers.

One of the film’s most striking visual elements sees red lines drawn on a mannequin used by Christine mirrored by pre-surgery red lines drawn on Maxine’s body by her doctor.

That, and a slender romantic detour between Maxine and her cinematographer Anton (Louis Garrel) sprinkle Couture with fleeting cinematic and narrative fizz. But that’s hardly a commanding draw.

Couture. Written and directed by Alice Winocour. Starring Angelina Jolie, Louis Garrel, Ella Rumpf, Garance Marillier, Anyier Anei, and Vincent Lindon. In theatres June 26.