In ‘Couture,’ director Alice Winocour presents a poignant exploration of the fashion industry through the lens of intersecting narratives, led by Angelina Jolie’s compelling performance.
‘Couture’ Review: Angelina Jolie Gives Sad Glamour in a Leaden Fashion Drama
Fashion is a serious business. It generates billions of dollars annually and influences culture in myriad overt and subliminal ways. However, when depicted on film, this haute world is often skewered in sophisticated satires like Robert Altman’s “Pret-a-Porter” and absurdist comedies like “Zoolander.” Credit to French director Alice Winocour, then, for approaching her country’s most iconic industry with near-total earnestness in the new film, “Couture.”
Intersecting Storylines
The film, like Altman’s work, is a collection of intersecting storylines, all converging on an elaborate Paris Fashion Week show. Angelina Jolie plays Maxine, a newcomer to the atelier scene, an indie-horror director flown from America to Paris to shoot a short film accompanying the models as they take to the runway. Anyier Anei portrays Ada, a rookie model from South Sudan via Kenya, wide-eyed and eager as she is thrust into a maelstrom of haughty men and clubgoing sisters. Ella Rumpf plays a makeup artist-cum-novelist who observes this glamorous, exclusive milieu with poetic detachment, while Rumpf’s “Raw” co-star Garance Marillier is a seamstress meticulously constructing an essential garment.
Exploring the Industry
This setup should provide an enlightening portrait of process, pride, and pressure within the fashion industry. However, Winocour — whose career has fascinatingly veered from the thriller “Disorder” to the sci-fi “Proxima” to the trauma drama “Paris Memories” — is ultimately more interested in mood than explanation. While we learn a few things as the threads of “Couture” unspool, we are primarily meant to feel a broadly melancholic wonder at this jumble of human activity.
Moments of Beauty
Occasionally, such feelings are achieved, especially in the climactic runway sequence, when a rainstorm whips up and epiphanies are experienced. Winocour is a tasteful stylist, employing Filip Leyman and Anna Von Hausswolff’s evocative score to elevate her already stirring visuals. There are quieter, subtler moments of loveliness: a model replacing a champagne bottle with her swollen feet, a director admiring the particular red of fake blood, and an airport goodbye between two young travelers from different war-torn lands. Winocour clearly cares for her characters, especially the often-maligned women laboring in this still male-controlled industry.
Patchy Construction
Despite the admirable effort, the overall construction of “Couture” feels patchy and ill-fitting. The crisscrossing narratives should allow exploration, yet Winocour does not fully capitalize on this opportunity. Most characters have plotlines so faint they are barely detectable. Ada interacts with her family in Kenya, worries about a rolled ankle, and parties with friends, while Angèle, the makeup artist, engages in brief, often meaningless small talk. The seamstress works on the dress and then works on it some more before finishing it. That’s pretty much it.
Maxine’s Heavy Arc
This naturalistic, lo-fi approach might work better if Maxine were not burdened with a heavy cancer arc. A phone call alerts her to bad news during her Paris trip. This allows Jolie to share scenes with the great Vincent Lindon as a concerned doctor, but Maxine’s plot lacks specifics that define her reaction to this terrible news. Jolie has mentioned that Maxine’s diagnosis was partly inspired by a personal health matter, adding a layer of depth. However, Winocour does not provide enough nuance to give Maxine’s journey the shading it needs.
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Jolie’s Performance
Nonetheless, Jolie brings palpable life to the role, complicating her otherworldly magnetism with a dawning dread and sorrow. She shines in scenes with Louis Garrel, who plays Maxine’s cinematographer and potential love interest with understated sex appeal. Jolie, a master of flirting and seducing on camera, illustrates the desperation and loneliness driving Maxine into the arms of her colleague, suggesting she may be saying goodbye to a facet of herself as she enters the realm of disease and treatment.
Conclusion
One wonders why a star like Jolie was not given more nuance to explore. The rest of “Couture” feels mismatched with Maxine’s struggles, resulting in a film that is both glancing and melodramatic, a strange cocktail of blasé Euro sleekness and TV-movie drama. At least the clothes are nice.
Grade: C
“Couture” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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