Coco Before Chanel

 Few know that Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was a sensation who rose from the ashes of an abject childhood, but this queen of the haute couture world was as dark as her bottomless eyes. In Anne Fontaine’s biopic Coco Before Chanel, Audrey Tautou simmers as the “world’s most elegant woman” who could never have it all.  

At the opening of the film, a young Gabrielle Chanel and her sister are abandoned at an orphanage by their father. As a result, Gabrielle is left sickened by the notion of love and from then on life becomes “a bore.” Upon leaving the orphanage, the sisters take jobs as seamstresses and spend their nights performing in a cafe where Gabrielle is fatefully christened “Coco.” With dreams of moving to Paris, Coco reluctantly accepts the advances of aristocrat Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), who offers her the comfort of his country estate.  It is here that Coco meets the true love of her life, Arthur Capel (Alessandro Nivola), who, unlike Etienne, encourages her habit of doctoring dress shirts and ultimately funds her empire. 

Fontaine subtly foreshadows the woman Coco is destined to be as we watch her tear into corsets and take the first crack at her famed “little black dress.” Tautou’s own dark eyes pulse with the past that drained the real Coco of any interest in frivolity and inspired her to market a wardrobe of simplicity, “the keynote of all true elegance,” as the designer once claimed. The film’s cinematography is as breathtaking as the costume design, which reaches its climax in the final scene: Coco’s first runway show. One cannot help but beam as Chanel’s dazzling creations glide across the screen in an act of resurrection.

Yet somehow, Coco resists. Underneath the beauty of her quilted classics, Chanel wore a broken heart.