Coco Before Chanel

[110MINS. CERT 12A]

Never mind Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. The most ghastly exploitation flick of the season is this half-witted attempt to fashion a superhero origins story – think Miss Potter or Becoming Jane minus any semblance of plot – around the iconic French seamstress of the title.
Why the Chanel estate cooperated with this misshapen confection, we shall never know: it’s not like they need the money. Perhaps they imagined Coco Before Chanel was this year’s Ma Vie En Rose. Certainly, Ms. Fontaine’s film slavishly adheres to the beats of the Piaf biopic, yet musters none of that film’s emotional razzmatazz. The hopelessly miscast Audrey Tatou cannot match Marion Cotillard ’s charisma nor does the size-zero anorexic screenplay require her to. The early life of the woman who invented the All-Cigarette Gallic Diet is reduced to a plodding series of ’And thens’. And then she seduced a rich guy. And then she became a chancer Courtesan. And then she meets another rich guy. And so on.
This largely worthless, resolutely dull picture is briefly enlivened by the arrival of love interest Alessandro Nivola and a smattering of foreshadowing – Look! She’s making alterations to a dress! – but that’s just not enough to satisfy dramatic wants or needs. One leaves the cinema knowing considerably less about the film’s subject than one did before. Ew la la.