Couture
Dustin Chase
The flashy, vivacious success of the electric “Devil Wears Prada 2” doesn’t do any comparative favors for the grey, dull and near lifeless “Couture.” While Oscar winning actress Angelina Jolie headlines the film, it’s an ensemble piece that looks at various women and roles of the fashion world. This non-commercial, French-indie film is all character development on a razor thin plot. An American cinema counterpart might be Robert Altman’s 2003 experimental flop “The Company”. French writer and director Alice Winocour takes the audience on a procedural journey through Paris Fashion Week with little emotion and faint pulse.
American director Maxine Walker (Jolie) touched down in Paris, fashionably or inconsiderately late, for interviews and the prepping of her short film that will open the glitzy Paris Fashion Week. In true Hollywood fashion she is distracted by a divorce, her daughter, upcoming projects and now a health scare. Make-up artist Angèle (Ella Rumpf) is working on a story about the dark side of the industry while she hustles from one gig to another. Newcomer Ada (Anyier Anei) has no time to acclimate from Africa to Europe as she is tapped to open the show, star in Maxine’s film,
Jolie front and center here means “Couture” gets a theatrical release and moderate interest, but....
and make her family proud back home. These important players represent women from all ages, countries and walks of life coming together to create art in motion.
While Jolie’s work as an actress, director and producer certainly gives her a lived in perspective to play a character like Maxine Walker, it’s not a challenging role. Jolie built a career on dynamic characters, her Oscar winning performance in “Girl, Interrupted” for example or bringing the iconic video game character Lara Croft in the “Tomb Raider” to life. Even her recent critically acclaimed turn as opera singer Maria Callas in “Maria” made for a riveting biopic. Jolie front and center here means “Couture” gets a theatrical release and moderate interest, but this is the kind of work she could do on her lunch break. Anei and Rumpf are more compelling characters, giving the audience more of a way into this world.
Films like “Prada” or “Phantom Thread” never felt like procedural stories about the fashion world, just entertaining works that happen to be set there. “Couture” is rarely entertaining and the way it’s edited and shot often feels like a docudrama. Winocour’s script for the 2015 film “Mustang” put her on the international map. However, her directing efforts have done little to advance her career on the international stage. One striking element in “Couture” is the consistency of interruptions for each character. Usually it’s phone calls, business or family. Winocour seems particularly interested in how these characters juggle professional, personal and interruptions as a whole. Yet doesn’t give enough space for them to explore the notion.
Final Thought
There is an air of banality to “Couture” and it’s presentation that performance or character work can’t overcome.