Tautou goes Chanel surfing
Audrey Tautou as "Coco" Chanel.
Coco Before Chanel
Running time: 110 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13 (adult situations, smoking)
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Like a generous splash of Chanel Nº 5 perfume, "Coco Before Chanel" makes its presence known distinctively and in a hurry.
Audrey Tautou, the French actress who propelled "Amélie" to a foreign film Academy Award nomination in 2001, takes on the title role of legendary French couturier Coco Chanel.
Director and co-writer Anne Fontaine, responsible for the recent flighty comic-drama "The Girl from Monaco," gives her audience a poignant whiff of what's to come. A fetching 20th century period piece, it reveals how a young French girl dropped off at a convent by her own father grew to become the "Coco" Chanel the fashion world knew until her death in 1971.
"Coco Before Chanel," in French with subtitles, is playful at times. How could it not be with Fontaine in the director's chair?
Mostly, however, it tells the emotional story of a determined young waif. Chanel sings a bouncy song about a little lost doggie named Coco (thus her nickname) to drunken soldiers early in the 20th century. Of course she goes on to make a name for herself in clothes, hats and being a woman on her own terms.
The screenplay, co-written by Camille Fontaine (no relation to the director), is "freely adapted" from the book "L'irrégulière by Edmonde Charles-Roux.
The version that lights up a movie screen is a starring vehicle for Tautou. But it also ferrets out the tough times (desperate financial conditions, succumbing to the notion of being a "kept woman," if you will) that forged Chanel's independent, fearless nature.
Tautou doesn't quite manage to fully disappear under the skin of a French legend like Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard did as Edith Piaf in "La vie en rose" (2007). She comes close enough, however, in a totally different life journey than that of Piaf.
Those unfamiliar with Chanel's story are likely to be a little surprised how much influence two wealthy men had on the formation of Chanel's persona over the years.
Étienne Balsan (Belgium's Benoȋt Poelvoorde), a rich race horse owner, emerges as the mentor who takes Chanel in. It is "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola), a wealthy coal baron, who wins the talented young hat-maker's heart, though.
Exquisitely captured on film by director of photography Christophe Beaucarne (also behind the camera for the recent "Paris"), "Coco Before Chanel" takes us from Chanel's youthful Sundays waiting for her father to return to the convent for her all the way to Coco we know.
Coco (and Tautou) glow as the successful designer takes her place on her famous stairway while Chanel's models parade her fashion line.
It is a rewarding, if emotionally draining, journey.
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