Coco Before Chanel

Coco Before Chanel

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Drama History

Before she was France's famous mademoiselle…

Director: Anne Fontaine

Producer: Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Philippe Carcassonne

Several years after leaving the orphanage, to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar. She's both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing.

110 min Rating: 6.884/10 Released
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Top Cast

Audrey Tautou
Audrey Tautou
 Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel
Benoît Poelvoorde
Benoît Poelvoorde
 Etienne Balsan
Alessandro Nivola
Alessandro Nivola
 Arthur 'Boy' Capel
Marie Gillain
Marie Gillain
 Adrienne Chanel
Emmanuelle Devos
Emmanuelle Devos
 Emilienne d'Alençon
Régis Royer
Régis Royer
 Alec, Jockey

Movie Info

Director: Anne Fontaine

Producer: Simon Arnal, Carole Scotta, Caroline Benjo, Philippe Carcassonne

Production Companies: Haut et Court, Ciné-@, France 2 Cinéma, SCOPE Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment France

Countries: Belgium, France

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User Reviews

What Others Said

CinemaSerf: Audrey Tautou is actually quite impressive here as the legendary French designer, but the rest of this rather blandly photographed melodrama is really more about her love life than her career. She's born Gabrielle and having left the orphanage in which she was abandoned with sister Adrienne (Marie Gillain), takes a job as a seamstress and supplements that with some cabaret work. Clearly she has skill - at both, but it's her charms at the latter that interest the wealthy Baron Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde). His name and association opens many doors for this aspiring woman but she tends to look upon him more, to his increasing chagrin, like a brother as she takes a shine to visiting British coal millionaire Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola) who agrees to fund her first millinery enterprise. Like so many of these rags-to-riches biopics, we spend way too long on the childhood and family dynamic before almost accidentally ending up at the how she got her break stuff. We hardly build at all on just how she became the woman she was. Those elements are sparingly portrayed and rushed leaving us with large parts of this drama delivering more of a Merchant Ivory style love triangle, peppered with some "House of Eliot" that has more of the soap than the salon to it. That said, Tautou rarely puts a foot wrong and does go some way to convince - despite the over scripting and underwhelming screenplay, and there's an hint of chemistry with Nivola too. It's fine, but sadly - nothing more, and it does little justice to Chanel as a woman or a brand.