COUTURE – Review by Loren King
Fashion is high minded art and serious business to some; frivolous to others. The always interesting French screenwriter and director Alice Winocour’s drama Couture balances both. Much like life, the story ambles from ordinary, even mundane travails, to matters of life and death.
Couture follows three women from different cultures who converge in Paris for fashion week. They all have a job to do in unfamiliar surroundings and a fast-paced, often callous atmosphere. Angelina Jolie stars as Maxine, an American filmmaker known for her indie horror films. She’s been tasked with directing a short film for a major fashion house. Jolie anchors Couture with a nuanced and natural performance that’s a welcome reminder of why she’s been a major screen presence for so long.
Ada (Anyier Anei), a young Sudanese model, is away from home and family for the first time. Angèle (Ella Rumpf) is an adept French makeup artist trying to turn her observations and experiences into a novel. Winocour constructs Couture as a woman’s film — men may be controlling fashion week but the film is concerned entirely with what is happening to these women, from Ada’s conflict over her young brother’s telephone call to Angèle’s stoic reaction to a Zoom meeting with a dismissive writing advisor. The most high stakes storyline is Maxine’s. She’s hit with a cancer diagnosis just when her career is about to take off and just when she’s figuring out how to parent her teenage child long distance. Jolie is so modulated as she conveys the turmoil and loneliness of this frightening news —from Maxine’s need for physical intimacy with her cinematographer (Louis Garrel) to her abrupt disclosure to an empathetic Angèle just because she needs to make the words real— that one can’t help but think of Jolie’s own public cancer battle and how cathartic it may have been for her to play this role.
Nearly all the film’s substantial scenes take place between the women. Their disparate lives may intersect only briefly but Couture is most effective when subtly revealing a world where survival often depends on fleeting connections and unspoken understandings.
