As well as being an actor, filmmaker, and humanitarian, Angelina Jolie is considered a style icon due to her headturning red carpet looks over the years. She heads to Paris Fashion Week for her latest leading role in French drama Couture, written and directed by Alice Winocour. The plot centres around Maxine (Jolie), an American horror director who lands the gig to make a short that will introduce the fashion show. During production she meets teenage model Ada (Anyier Anei), and make-up artist Angèle (Ella Rumpf), and the women’s emotional stories begin to intersect within the harsh underbelly of the event, behind the glitz and the glamour of the runway.
Shifting focus between three key characters, the flowing structure is episodic but elegant as it weaves from one narrative to the next. The City of Lights is lovingly captured by Winocour’s lens but as her working class protagonists face challenges of health, imposter syndrome, and unfulfilled desires, the compassionate script leans into harsh reality over heightened haute couture. Maxine’s arc takes more of the spotlight than the others, and her emotional scenes with a doctor, masterfully portrayed by Vincent Lindon, are beautifully written.
This production is noted as the English-language debut for Winocour but there is, as you’d expect, a lot of French too and Jolie gives an impressive bilingual performance. With a slightly punk rock aesthetic, Maxine is a fish out of water in this world – a B-movie hotshot thrust into an exciting but daunting opportunity, and though she carries herself with grace and confidence, you can see her vulnerability just beneath the surface. Less effective is Anei’s turn as South Sudanese outsider Ada; a model by trade in real life, her lack of acting experience is occasionally evident with such talent around her. Once troubled sisters in Julia Ducournau’s cannibal horror Raw, actors Ella Rumpf and Garance Marillier are reunited here as colleagues – both are great but in parts that are perhaps a little too brief to have a lasting impact.
Starring roles have sadly become few and far between for Angelina Jolie in recent years, but this could arguably be her strongest to date. It’s a brilliant, bracingly naked performance that makes Alice Winocour’s drama Couture endlessly compelling.
Couture is available on Digital HD from 20 April. Distributed by Signature Entertainment
Cinema Perspective 